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CHILDE HAROLD 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 
PILGRIMAGE 



a asomaunt 



By lord BYRON 



ILLUSTRATED 




Of . 



2^ ff 



J 



/ 



BOSTON 
TICKNOR AND COMPANY 

1886 



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Copyright, 1885, 
By Ticknor and Company. 



All rights reserved. 




\ 



Sist of Illustriition0. 

[Drawn and Engraved under the Supervision of A. V. S. Anthony.] 

Lord Byron Frontispiece 

Headpiece » . . . . 11 

Tailpiece 11 

Half Title 13 

Ornament 14 

Ianthe 15 ' 

Headpiece to Ianthe 17' 

Headpiece to Canto 1 21 

'' Chilcle Harold basked him in the noon-tide sun, 

Disporting there like any other fly " 23 

" Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high " 27 

" What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold! 

Her image floating on that noble tide " 30 

Cintra 34 

Talavera's Plain 39 

" At every turn Morena's dusky height 

Sustains aloft the battery's iron load " 43 

" Oh, thou Parnassus ! whom I now survey " 47 



8 ILL USTBA TIONS. 

" Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribboned fair, 

Others aloug the safer turnpike fly " 51 

Inez 57 

Cadiz from the Sea 59 

Tailpiece 63 

Headpiece to Canto II 67 

" Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, 

Its chambers desolate, and portals foul " 69 

The Temple of Jupiter 72 

Gibraltar from the East 76 

Albania's Shore 81 

Tempe 85 

" The glittering minarets of Tepalen, 

Whose walls o'erlook the stream " 88 

The Chieftain's Tower 92 

" In bleak Thermoj)yl0e's sepulchral strait " 97 

Stamboul 100 

Marathon 104 

Tailpiece 107 

Headpiece to Canto III HI 

Ada 113 

" Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends " 117 

The Field of Waterloo 121 

'' And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves " 123 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 9 

Napoleon 127 

" And many a tower for some fair mischief won, 

Saw the discolored lihine beneath its ruin run " 133 

" The castled crag of Drachenfels 

Frowns o'er the Avide and winding Khine " 137 

" Above me are the Alps, 

The palaces of ;N"ature " 140 

" Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, 

The mirror where the stars and mountains view 

The stillness of their aspect " . . . .' ,143 

" Save darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear 

Precipitously steep " 149 

" Now, where the swift Ehone cleaves his way between 

Heights which appear as lovers who have parted" . 152 

Lausanne . 157 

Tailpiece 161 

Headpiece to Canto IV 165 

" A palace and a prison on each hand" 167 

" Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, 

Their gilded collars glittering in the sun " 170 

" The Moon is up, and yet it is not night — 

Sunset divides the sky with her" 175 



Ferrara 



179 



" Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 

Was modern Luxury of Commerce born " 183 

Dante jgj 

" The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss " 191 



10 ILL US TEA TIONS. 

" The very sepulchres lie tenantless 

Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, 

Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? " 195 

" What was this tower of strength 1 within its cave 

What treasure lay so locked, so hid 1 — A woman's grave " . . . . 203 

" Tarpeian — fittest goal of Treason's race, 

The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap 

Cured all ambition r' • 207 

" Amidst this "vvreck, where thou hast made a shrine 

And temple more divinely desolate " 213 

" But when the rising moon hegins to climb 

Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there " . . ... . . .' . . 219 

Egypt's River 222 

St. Peter's 225 

" And from the Alban Mount we now behold 

Our friend of youth, that ocean " 231 

'' Pathless woods " 232 

The Ocean 234 

Tailpiece 236 




E. H. Garrett. 

F. B. SCHELL. 

A. V. S. Anthony. 



5ri)e pmtoingsi arc bg 

S. L. Smith. 
G. Perkins. 
L. S. Ipsen. 



Harry Fenn. 
J. D. Woodward. 
F. Myrick. 



Geo. Andrew. 

A. V. S. Anthony. 



)c (!5ngrariings are bg 

W. J. Dana. 
G. E. Johnson. 
H. E. Sylvester. 



S. S. KiLBURN. 

Y. Chandler. 




CANTO THE FIRST. 












... ^^^A ...jCS^ 







Oh, thou ! ill Hellas deemed of heavenly birth, 
Muse ! formed or fabled at the minstrel's will ! 
Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth, 
Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill : 
Yet there I 've wandered by thy vaunted rill ; 
Yes ! sighed o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine, 
Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still ; 
Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine 
To grace so plain a tale — this lowly lay of mine. 



II. 

Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth. 
Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight ; 
But spent his days in riot most uncouth, 
And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. 
Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight. 



22 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

Sore given to revel and ungodly glee ; 
Few earthly things found favor in his sight 
Save concubines and carnal companie, 
And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. 

III. 

Childe Harold was he hight : — but whence his name 
And lineage long, it suits me not to say; 
Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame, 
And had been glorious in another day : 
But one sad losel soils a name for aye, 
However mighty in the olden time ; 
Nor all that heralds rake from coffined clay, 
Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme 
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. 

IV. 

Childe Harold basked him in the noon-tide sun. 
Disporting there like any other fly ; 
Nor deemed before his little day was done 
One blast might chill him into misery. 
But long ere scarce a third of his passed by, 
Worse than adversity the Childe befell ; 
He felt the fulness of satiety : 
Then loathed he in his native land to dwell, 
Which seemed to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell. 

V. 

For he tlu'ough Sin's long labyrinth had run, 
Nor made atonement when he did amiss, 
Had sighed to many though he loved but one, 
And that loved one, alas ! could ne'er be his. 
Ah, happy she ! to 'scape from him whose kiss 



CANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



23 







Had been pollution unto aught so chaste ; 
Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, 
And spoiled her goodly lands to gild his waste, 
Nor calm domestic peace had ever deigned to taste. 



VI. 

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart. 
And from his fellow bacchanals would flee ; 
'T is said, at times the sullen tear would start. 
But Pride congealed the drop within his ee : 
Apart he stalked in joyless reverie, 
And from his native land resolved to go, 
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea ; 
With pleasure drugged he almost longed for woe. 
And e'en for chano;c of scene would seek the shades below. 



24 CHlLDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

VI] . 

The Childe departed from his father's hall : 
It was a vast and venerable pile ; 
So old, it seemed only not to fall, 
Yet strength was JDillared in each massy aisle. 
Monastic dome ! condemned to uses vile ! 
Where Superstition once had made her den 
Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile ; 
And monks might deem their time was come agen, 
If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men. 

VIII. 
Yet oft-times in his maddest mirthful mood 
Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow, 
As if the memory of some deadly feud 
Or disappointed passion lurked below : 
But this none knew, nor li^jily cared to know ; 
For his was not that open, artless soul 
That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, ! 

Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole, ^ 

Whate'er this grief mote be, which he could not control. 

IX. 

And none did love him — though to hall and bower 
He gathered revellers from far and near, 
He knew them flatterers of the festal hour ; 
The heartless parasites of present cheer. 
Yea! none did love him — not his lemans deaf — 
But pomp and power alone are woman's care. 
And where these are light Eros finds a fere ; 
Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare. 
And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair. 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 25 

X. 

Childe Harold had a mother — not forgot, 
Though parting from that mother he did shun ; 
A sister whom he loved, hut saw her not 
Before his weary pilgrimage hegun : 
If friends he had, he bade adieu to none. 
Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel ; 
Ye, who have known what 't is to doat upon 
A few dear objects, will in sadness feel 
Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal. 

XI. 

His house, his home, his heritage, his lands. 
The laughing dames in whom he did delight. 
Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands 
Might shake the saintship of an anchorite. 
And long had fed his youthful appetite ; 
His goblets brimmed with every costly wine. 
And all that mote to luxury invite, 
Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine, 
And traverse Paynim shores, and pass Earth's central line. 

( XII. 

The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew. 
As glad to waft him from his native home ; 
And fast the white rocks faded from his view. 
And soon were lost in circumambient foam : 
And then, it may be, of his wish to roam 
Repented he, but in his bosom slept 
The silent thought, nor from his lips did come 
One word of wail, whilst others sate and wept. 
And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept. 



26 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

XIII. 
But when the sun was sinking in the sea 
He seized his harp, which he at times could string, 
And strike, albeit with untaught melody, 
When deemed he no strange ear was listening: 
And now liis fingers o'er it he did fling, 
And tuned his farewell in the dim twilight. 
While flew the vessel on her snowy wing, 
And fleeting shores receded from his sight. 
Thus to the elements he poured his last " Good Night." 



"Adieu, adieu! my native shore 

Fades o'er the waters blue; 
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, 

And shrieks the wild seamew. 
Yon sun that sets upon the sea 

We follow in his flight ; 
Farewell awhile to him and thee, 

My native Land — Good Night ! 

II. 

" A few short hours and he will rise 

To give the morrow birth ; 
And I shall hail the main and skies. 

But not my mother Earth. 
Deserted is my own good hall, 

Its hearth is desolate ; 
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall : 

My dog howls at the gate. 



III. 



■ Come hither, hither, my little page ! 
Why dost thou weep and wail ?. 



\ 



CANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



27 



Or dost thou dread the billows' rage 

Or tremble at the gale ? 
But dash the tear-drop from thine eye ; 

Our ship is swift and strong : 
Our. fleetest falcon scarce can fly 
• More merrily along." 

IV. 

"Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, 

I fear not wave nor wind ; 
Yet marvel not. Sir Childe, that I 

Am sorrowful in mind ; 
For I have from my father gone, 

A mother whom I love, 
And have no friend, save these alone, 

But thee — and One above. 

V. 

" My father blessed me fervently, 

Yet did not much complain ; 
But sorely will my mother sigh 

Till I come back again." — 
" Enough, enough, my little lad ! 

Such tears become thine eye ; 
If I thy guileless bosom had 

Mine own would not be dry. 




28 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto a 

VI. 
" Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman, 
Why dost thou look so pale? 
Or dost thou dread a French foeman ? 

Or shiver at the gale ? " — 
" Deem'st thou I tremble for my life ?. 

Sir Childe, I 'm not so weak ; 
But thinking on an absent wife 
Will blanch a faithful cheek. 

VII. 

" My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall. 

Along the bordering lake. 

And when they on their father call. 

What answer shall she make ? " — i 

" Enough, enough, my yeoman good, ( ' 

Thy grief let none gainsay; ^ 

But I, who am of lighter mood, i 

AVill laugh to flee away. ' 

\ 
VIII. 

" For who would trust the seeming sighs 

Of wife or paramour? 
Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes 

We late saw streaming o'er. 
For pleasures past I do not grieve. 

Nor perils gathering near ; 
My greatest grief is that I leave 

No thing that claims a tear. 

IX. 
" And now I 'm in the world alone, 
Upon the wide, wide sea : 
But why should I for others groan. 

When none will sigh for me ? 
Perchance my dog will whine in vain. 
Till fed by stranger hands ; 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 29 

But long ere I come back again, 
He 'd tear me where he stands, 

X. 

/'With thee, n^j uurk, I '11 swiftly go 

Athwart the foaming brine ; 
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to, 
/- So not again to mine. 
"Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves ! 

And when you fail my sight. 
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves ! 

My native Land — Good Night!" 

XIV. 
On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone, 
And winds arc rude in Biscay's sleepless bay, 
Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon, 
New shores descried make every bosom gay ; 
And Cintra's mountain greets them on their way, 
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep, 
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay ; 
And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap. 
And steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap. 

XV. 

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see 
What heaven hath done for this delicious land ! 
What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree ! 
What goodly prospects o'er the iiills expand ! 
But man would mar them with an impious hand : 
And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 
'Gainst those who most transgress his liigli command, 
With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge 
Gaul's locust liost, and earth from fcllest foeraen purge. 



30 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO I 



XVI. 

What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold ! / 
Her image floating on that noble tide, 
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold, 
But now whereon a thousand keels did ride 
Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied, 
And to the Lusians did her aid afford : 
^^k. nation swoln with ignorance and pride, 
^^Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword 
To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing lord. 




XVII. 
But whoso cntcreth within this town. 
That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, 
Disconsolate will wander up and down, 
'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee ; 
For hut and palace show like filthily : 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 31 

The dingy denizens are reared in dirt ; 
Ne personage of higii or mean degree 
Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt, 
Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt. 

xviir. 
Four, paltry slaves, yet boni 'midst noblest scenes — 
Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men ? 
Lo ! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes 
In variegated maze of mount and glen. 
All, me ! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, 
To follow half .on which the eye dilates 
Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken 
Than those whereof such things the bard relates. 
Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates ? 

XIX. 

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned, 
'^)ic cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, 
le mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrowned, 
he sunken glen whose sunless shrubs must weep. 
The tender azure of the unruffled deep, 
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, 
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap. 
The vine on high, the willow branch below, 
'"^fixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. 

XX. 

l^riien slowly climb the many-winding way, 
.nd frequent turn to linger as you go, 

Is vom loftier rocks new loveliness survey, 
[And rest ye at our " Lady's house of woe ; " 

Where frugal monks their little relics show. 



32 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

And sundry legends to the stranger tell : 
Here impious men have punished been, and lo! 
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, 
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell. 

xxr. 

And here and there, as up the crags you spring, 
Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path : 
Yet deem not these devotion's offering — 
These are memorials frail of murderous wrath: 
For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath 
Poured forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife 
Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath ; 
And grove and glen with thousand such are rife 
Throughout this purple laud, where law secures not life. 

XXII. 
On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, 
Are domes where whilomc kings did make repair : I 
But now the wild flowers round them only breathe ; 
Yet ruined splendor still is lingering there. 
And yonder towers the Prince's palace fair : 
There thou too, Vathek ! England's wealthiest son, 
Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware 
When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done 

Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. 

I 

XXIII. / 

Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, 
Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow : ; 

But now, as if a thing unblest by man, \ 

Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou ! I 

Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow \ 



\ 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 33 

To halls deserted, portals gaping wide : 
Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how 
Vain are the pleasaunccs on earth supplied ,* 
Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide ! 

XXIV. 

Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened ! 
Oh ! dome displeasing unto British eye ! 
With diadem hight foolscap, lo ! a fiend, 
A little fiend that scoffs incessantly. 
There sits in parchment robe arrayed, and by 
His side is hung a seal and sable scroll. 
Where blazoned glare names known to chivalry. 
And sundry signatures adorn the roll, 
i; Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul. 

( XXV. 

Convention is the dwarfish demon styled 
I That foiled the knights in Marialva's dome : 
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled, 
And turned a nation's sliallow joy to gloom. 
Here Folly daslied to earth the victor's plume. 
And Policy regained what arms had lost : 
For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom ! 
Woe to the conquering, not the conquered host, 
Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania's coast! 

XXVI. 

And ever since that martial synod met, 
Britannia sickens, Cintra ! at thy name ; 
And folks in office at the mention fret, 
And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. 
How will posterity the deed proclaim ! 

3 



34 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO I. 







Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer, 
To view these champions cheated of their fame, 
By foes in fight o'crthrown, yet victors here, ' 

Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming \ s.Jr, 

XXVII 
So deemed the Childe as o'er the mountains he 
Did take his way in solitary guise : 
Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, 
More restless than the swallow in the skies : 
Though here awhile he learned to moralize. 
For Meditation fixed at times on him ; 
And conscious Reason whispered to despise 
His early youth, misspent in maddest whim ; 
But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim. 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 35 

XXVIII. 

To horse ! to horse ! he quits, for ever quits 
A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul : 
Again lie rouses from his moping fits. 
But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. 
Onward he flies, nor fixed as jet the goal 
Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage ; 
And o'er him many changing scenes must roll 
Ere toil his thirst' for travel can assuage. 
Or he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage. 

XXIX. 

Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay. 
Where dwelt of yore the Lusian's luckless queen ; 
And church and court did mingle their array, 
And mass and revel were alternate seen ; 
Lordlings and f reres — ill sorted fry I ween ! 
But li€re the Babylonian whore hath built 
A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen, 
That men forget the blood which she hath spilt, 
i And bow the knee to Pomp that loves to varnish guilt. 

XXX. 

1 O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, 
(Oh, that such hills upheld a freeborn race !) 
! Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce fills, 
Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place. 
{Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, 
(And marvel men should quit their easy chair, 
(The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, 
Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain air, 
Aiid life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share. 



36 CHILLE HAEOLL'S canto i. 

XXXI. 

More bleak to view the hills at length recede, 
And, less luxuriant, smoother vales extend : 
Immense horizon-bounded plains succeed ! 
Far as the eye discerns, withouten end, 
Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend 
Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows — 
Now must the pastor's arm his lands defend : 
For Spain is compassed by unyielding foes, 
And all must shield their all, or share Subjection's woes. 

XXXII. 

Where Lusitania and her sister meet, 
Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide ? 
Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet, 
Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide ? 
Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride ? 
Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall ? — 
Xe barrier wall, ue river deep and wide, 
Xe horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall. 
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gajl- 

XXXIII. 

But these between a silver streamlet glides, 
And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook, 
Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides. 
Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook. 
And vacant on the rippling waves doth look, 
That -peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow; 
For proud each peasant as the noblest duke : 
Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 
'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 37 

XXXIV. 

But ere the mingiing- bounds luivc far been passed 
Dark Guadiana rolls his power along 
In sullen billows, murmuring and vast, 
So noted ancient roundelays among. 
Whilome upon his banks did legions throng 
Of Moor and knight, in mailed splendor drest : 
Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong; 
The Paynim turban and the Christian crest 
Mixed on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppressed. 

XXXV. 

Oh, lovely Spain I renowned, romantic land ! 
Where is that standard whicli Pelagio bore, 
When Cava's traitor-sire first called the band 
That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore ? 
Where are those bloody banners Avhich of yore 
Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale. 
And drove at last the spoilers to their shore ? 
Red gleamed the cross, and waned the crescent pale. 
While Afric's echoes thrilled with Moorish matrons' wail. 

XXXVI. 

Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale ? 
Ah! such, alas! the hero's amplest fate! 
When granite moulders and when records fail, 
A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date. 
Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate, 
See how the Mighty shrink into a song ! 
Can Volume, Pillar, Pile, preserve thee great ? 
Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue, 
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong ? 



88 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

XXXVII. 

Awake, jq sons of Spain ! awake ! advance ! 
Lo ! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries, 
But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance, 
Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies : 
Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies. 
And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar : 
In every peal she calls — '' Awake ! arise!" 
Say, is her voige more feeble than of yore, 
"When her war-song w^as heard on Andalusia's shore ? 

XXXVIIT. 

Hark I — heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? 
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath? 
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote ; 
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath 
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? — the fires of death, 
The bale-fires flash on high : — from rock to rock 
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe : 
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, 
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. 

XXXIX. 

Lo ! where the Giant on the mountain stands, 
His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, 
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon ; 
Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon 
Flashing afar, — and at his iron feet 
Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done; 
For on this morn three potent nations met. 
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. 



CANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



39 




XL. 

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see 
(For one who hath no friend, no brother there) 
Tlieir rival scarfs of mixed embroidery, 
Their various arms that glitter in the air ! 
What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, 
And gnash their fangs loud yelling for the prey! 
All join the chase, but few the triumphs share ; 
The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away. 
And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array. 



XLI. 



Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice ; 

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high ; 

Three gaudy standards flout the ])ale blue skies ; 



40 CHILDE HAllOLD'S canto i. 

The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory ! 
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally 
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain. 
Are met — as if at home they could not die — 
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain. 
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. 

XLII. 

There shall they rot — Ambition's honored fools! 
Yes, Honor decks the turf that wraps their clay ! 
Vain Sophistry ! in these behold the tools, 
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away 
By myriads, when they dare to pave their way 
With human hearts — to what? — a dream alone. 
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway ? 
Or call with truth one span of earth their own. 
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone? 

XLTII. 
Oh, Albuera ! glorious field of grief ! 
As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim pricked his steed. 
Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief, 
A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed! 
Peace to the perished ! may the warrior's meed 
And tears of triumph their reward prolong ! 
Till others fall where other chieftains lead 
Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng, 
And shine in worthless lays, the theme of transient song! 

XLIV. 
Enough of Battle's minions ! let them })lay 
Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame: 
Fame that will scarce reanimate their clay, 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 41 

Though thousands fall to deck some single name. 
In sooth 't were sad to thwart their noble aim 
Who strike, blest hirelings ! for their country's good, 
And die, that living might have proved her shame ; 
Perished, perchance, in some domestic feud, 
Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine's path pursued. 

XLV. 

Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way 
Where proud Sevilla triumphs unsubdued : 
Yet is slie free — the spoiler's wished-for prey! 
Soon, soon shall Conquest's fiery foot intrude. 
Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude. 
Inevitable hour ! 'Gainst fate to strive 
Where Desolation ])lants her famished brood 
Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre, might yet survive, 
And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder cease to thrive. 

XLVI. 
But all unconscious of the coming doom, 
The feast, the song, the revel here abounds ; 
Strange modes of merriment the hours consume. 
Nor bleed these patriots with their country's wounds : 
Not here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck sounds ; 
Here Folly still his votaries enthralls ; 
And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds : 
Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals, 
Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tottering walls. 

XLYII. 

Not so the rustic — with his trembling mate 
He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye afar. 
Lest he should view his vineyard desolate. 



42 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

Blasted below the dun hot breath of war. 
No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star 
Fandango twirls his jocund castanet : 
Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, 
Nut in the toils of Glory would ye fret ; 
The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet ! 

XLVIII. 
How carols now the lusty muleteer ? 
Of love, romance, devotion is his lay, 
As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer, 
His quick bells wildly jingling on the Avay ? 
No ! as he speeds, he chaunts ; " Viva el Rey ! " 
And checks his song to execrate CTodoy, 
The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day 
When first Spain's queen beheld the black-eyed boy. 
And gore-faced Treason sprung from her adulterate joy. 

XLIX. 

On yon long, level plain, at distance crowned 
With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest, 
Wide scattered hoot-marks dint the wounded ground; 
And, scathed by fire, the green sward's darkened vest 
Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest : 
Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host, 
Here the bold peasant stormed the dragon's nest ; 
Still does he mark it with triumphant boast. 
And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were Avon and lost. 

L. 

And whomsoe'cr along the path you meet 

Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue. 

Which tells you whom to shun and whom to Q:rcet : 



CANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



43 



Woe to the man that walks in public view 
Without of loyalty this token true : 
Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke; 
And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue, 
If subtle poniards, Avrapt beneath the cloke, 
Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke. 

LI. 

At every turn Morena's dusky height 
Sustains aloft the battery's iron load ; 
And, far as mortal eye can compass sight, 
The mountain-howitzer, the broken road. 
The bristling palisade, the fosse o'erflowed, 
The stationed bands, the never-vacant watch, 
The magazine in rocky durance stowed, 
The bolstered steed beneath the shed of thatch, 
The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match, 




44 " CHILDE HAEOLD'S canto i. 

LII. 

Portend the deeds to come : — but he whose nod 
Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway 
A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod ; 
A little moment deigneth to delay : 
Soon will his legions sweep through tliese their way ; 
The West must own the Scourger of the world. 
Ah ! Spain I -how sad will be thy reckoning-day, 
When soars Gaul's Vulture, with his wings unfurled, 
And thou shalt view thy sous in crowds to Hades hurled. 

LIII. 

And must they fall ? the young, the proud, the brave. 
To swell one bloated Chiefs unwholesome reign ? 
Xo step between submission and a grave ? 
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain ? 
And doth the Power that man adores ordain 
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal ? 
Is all that desperate Valor acts in vain ? 
And Coimsel sage, and patriotic Zeal, 
The Veteran's skill. Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart of steel ? 

LIV. 

Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused, 
Hangs on the willow her imstrung guitar, 
And, all unsexed, the anlace hath espoused, 
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war ? 
And she, whom once the semblance of a scar 
Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread, 
Xow views the column-scattering bayenet jar. 
The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead 
Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to tread. 



CANTO I. PILGRUrAGE. 45 

LV. 

Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, 
Oh I had you known her in her softer hour, 
Marked her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil, 
Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower, 
Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, 
Her fairy form with more than female grace. 
Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower 
Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face. 
Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase. 

LVI. 
Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-timed tear; 
Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post ; 
Her fellows flee — she checks their base career; 
The foe retires — she heads the sallying host: 
Who can appease like her a lover's ghost ? 
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall ? 
What maid retrieve when man's flushed hope is lost ? 
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, 
Foiled by a woman's hand, before a battered wall? 

LTII. 

Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, 
But formed for all the witching arts of love : 
. Though thus in arms they emulate her sons. 
And in the horrid phalanx dare to move, 
'T is but the tender fierceness of the dove 
Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate : 
In softness as in firmness far above 
Remoter females, famed for sickening prate ; 
Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance as great. 



46 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

LVIII. 

The seal Love's dimpling fiiig'cr hath impressed 
Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch : 
Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest, 
Bid man be valiant ere lie merit such : 
Her glance how wildly beautiful ! how much 
Hath Phuibus wooed in vain to spoil her check, 
Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch ! 
Who round the North for paler dames would seek ? 
How poor their forms appear ! how languid, wan, and weak ! 

LIX. 
Match me, ye climes I which poets love to laud ; 
Match me, y€ harems of the land ! where now 
I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud 
Beauties that even a cynic must avow ; 
Match me those Houries, whom ye scarce allow 
To taste the gale lest Love should ride tlie wind, 
With Spain's dark-glancing daughters — deign to know, 
There your wise Prophet's paradise wc find, 
His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind. 

LX. 

Oh, tliou Parnassus! wliom I now survey. 
Not in the phrenzy of a dreamer's eye, 
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay. 
But soaring snow-clad througli thy native sky, 
In the wild pomp of mountain majesty ! 
What marvel if I thus essay to sing ? 
The huml)lest of thy pilgrims ])assing by 
Would gladly woo thine Eclioes with his string. 
Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing. 



ANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



47 



LXI. 

Oft have I dreamed of thee ! whose glorious name 
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore : 
And now I view thee, 't is, alas ! with shame 
That I in feeblest accents must adore. 
When I recount thy worshippers of yore 
I tremble, and can only bend the knee ; 
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, 
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy 
In silent joy to think at last I look on thee ! 

LXII. 
Happier in this than mightiest bards have been. 
Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot, 




48 CHILDE HAROLD'S ■ canto i. 

Shall I unmoved beliold the hallowed scene, 
Which others rave of, though thcv know it not ? 
Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot. 
And thou, the Muses' scat, art now their grave, 
Some gentle Spirit still pervades the spot, 
Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave, 
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious wave. 

LXIII. 

Of thee hereafter. — Even amidst my strain 
I turned aside to pay my homage here ; 
Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain, 
Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear. 
And hailed thee, not perchance without a tear. 
Now to my theme — but from thy holy haunt 
Let me some remnant, some memorial bear ; 
Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant. 
Nor let thy votary's hope be deemed an idle vaunt. 

LXIV. 

But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount ! when Greece was young, 
See round thy giant base a brighter choir. 
Nor e'er did Delphi, when her priestess sung 
The Pythian hymn with more than mortal fire. 
Behold a train more fitting to inspire 
The song of love, than Andalusia's maids, 
Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire : 
Ah ! that to these were given such peaceful shades 
As Greece can still bestow, though Glory fly her glades. 

LXV. 

Fair is proud Seville ; let her country boast 

Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days ; 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 49 

But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast, 
Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise. 
Ah, Vice I how soft arc thy voluptuous ways ! 
While boyish blood is mantling who can \scape 
The fascination of thy magic gaze ? 
A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape, 
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape. 

LXVI. 

When Paphos fell by Time — accursed Time! 
The queen who conquers all must yield to thee — 
The Pleasures fled, but sought as warm a clime ; 
And Venus, constant to her native sea. 
To nought else constant, hither deigned to flee ; 
And fixed her shrine within these walls of white : 
Though not to one dome circumscribeth she 
Her worship, but, devoted to her rite, 
A thousand altars rise, for ever blazing bright. 

LXVII. 

From morn till night, from night till startled Morn 
Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew. 
The song is heard, tlie rosy garland worn. 
Devices quaint, and frolics ever new. 
Tread on each other's kibes. A long adieu 
He bids to sober joy that here sojourns : 
Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu 
Of true devotion monkish incense burns. 
And Love and Prayer unite, or rule the hour by turns. 

LXVIIL 
The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest ; 
What hallows it upon this Christian shore ? 



50 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

Lo it is sacred to a solemn feast : 
Hark! heard you not the forest-monarch's roar? 
Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore 
Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn; 
The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more ; 
Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn. 
Nor shrinks the female eye, nor even affects to mourn. 

LXIX. 

The seventh day this ; the jubilee of man. 
London ! right well thou know'st the day of prayer : 
Then thy spruce citizen, washed artizan. 
And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air : 
Thy coach of hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair, 
And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl, 
To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow make repair ; 
Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl. 
Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl, 

LXX. 

Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribboned fair, 
Others along the safer turnpike fly ; 
Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware, 
And many to the steep of Highgate hie. 
Ask ye, Boeotian shades ! the reason wliy ? 
'T is to the worship of the solemn Horn, 
Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery, 
In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, 
And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till morn. 

LXXI. 

All have their fooleries — not alike are thine, 
Fair Cadiz, risino; o'er the dark blue sea ! 



'ANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



51 




Soon as the matin bell proclaimcth nine, 
Thy saint adorers count the rosary : 
Mucli is the Virgin teased to shrive them free 
(Well do I ween the only virgin there) 
From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen be ; 
Then to the crowded circus forth they fare, 
Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share. 



Lxxir. 

The lists are oped, the spacious area cleared. 
Thousands on thousands piled are seated round ; 
Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard, 
Ne vacant space for lated Avight is found. 
Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound, 
Skilled in the ogle of a roguish eye, 



52 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto i. 

Yet ever well inclined to heal the wonnd ; 
None through their cold disdain are doomed to die, 
As moon-struck bards complain, by Love's sad archery. 

LXXIII. 

Hushed is the din of tongues — on gallant steeds, 
With milk-white crest, gold spur, and light-poised lance, 
Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds. 
And lowly bending to the lists advance ; 
Rich are their scarfs, tlieir chargers featly prance: 
If in the dangerous game they shine to-day. 
The crowd's loud shout and ladies' lovely glance, 
Best prize of better acts, they bear away, 
And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain their toils repay. 

LXXIV. 

In costly sheen and gaudy cloak arrayed. 
But all afoot, the light-liml)cd Matadore 
Stands in the centre, eager to invade 
The lord of lowing herds ; but not before 
The ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er. 
Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed : 
His arms a dart, he fights aloof, nor more 
Can man achieve without the friendly steed, 
Alas! too oft condemned for him to bear, and bleed. 

LXXV. 
Thrice sounds the clarion ; lo ! the signal falls, 
The den expands, and Expectation mute 
Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls. 
Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute, 
And, wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot. 
The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe : 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 53 

Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit 
His first attack, wide waving to and fro 
His angry tail ; red rolls his eye's dilated glow. 

LXXVI. 

Sudden he stops ; his eye is fixed : away, 
Away, thou heedless boy ! prepare the spear : 
Now is thy time, to perish, or display 
The skill that yet may check his mad career. 
With well-timed croupe the nimble coursers veer ; 
On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes ; 
Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear : 
He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes ; 
Dart follows dart ; lance, lance ; loud bellowings speak his woes. 

Lxxvir. 

Again he comes ; nor dart nor lance avail. 
Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse ; 
Though man and man's avenging arms assail, 
Yain are his w'capons, vainer is his force. 
One gallant steed is stretched a mangled corse ; 
Another, hideous sight! unseamed appears. 
His gory chest unveils life's panting source. 
Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears, 
Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears. 

Lxxviir. 

Foiled, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, 

Full in the centre stands the l)ull at bay, 

'Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast, 

And foes disabled in the brutal fray : 

And now the Matadores around him play, 

Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand : 



54 CHILD E HAROLD'S canto i. 

Once more through all he bursts his thundering way — 
Vain rage ! the mantle quits the conynge hand, 
Wraps his fierce eye — 't is past — he sinks upon the sand ! 

LXXIX. 

Where liis vast neck just mingles with the spine, 
Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies. 
He stops — he starts — disdaining to decline : 
Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries, 
Without a groan, witliout a struggle dies. 
The decorated car appears — on high 
The corse is piled — sweet sight for vulgar eyes — 
Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy, 
Hurl the dark buUi along, scarce seen in dashing by. 

LXXX. 

Such the ungentle sport that oft invites 
The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain. 
Nurtured in l)lood betimes, his heart delights 
In vengeance, gloating on another's pain. 
What private feuds the troubled village stain ! 
Though now one phalanxed host should meet the foe, 
Enough, alas I in humbled homes remain. 
To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow. 
For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow. 

LXXXT. 

But Jealousy has fled : his bars, his bolts, 
His withered sentinel. Duenna sage ! 
And all whereat the generous soul revolts. 
Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, 
Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. 
Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen, 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 55 

(Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), 
With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, 
While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen? 

LXXXII 

Oh I many a time, and oft, had Harold loved. 
Or dreamed he loved, since rapture is a dream ; 
But now his wayward bosom was unmoved. 
For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream : 
And lately had he learned with truth to deem 
Love has no gift so grateful as his wings : 
How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem. 
Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs 
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. 

Lxxxni. 

Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind, 
Though now it moved him as it moves the wise ; 
Not that Philosophy on such a mind 
E'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes : 
But Passion raves herself to rest, or flies ; 
And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb, 
Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise : 
Pleasure's palled victim I life-auhorring gloom 
Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom. 

LXXXIV. 

Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng ; 
But viewed them not with misanthropic hate : 
Fain would he now have joined the dance, the song; 
But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate ? 
Nought that he saw his sadness could abate : 
Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway, 



56 CHILDE HAROLDS canto i. 

And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate, 
Poured forth this unpremeditated lay, 
To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day. 



TO INEZ. 



Nay, smile not at my sullen brow, 

Alas I I cannot smile again ; 
Yet heaven avert that ever thou 

Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain. 



II. 

And dost thou ask, what secret woe 
I bear, corroding joy and youth ? 

And wilt thou vainly seek to know 

A pang, even thou must fail to soothe ? 



It is not love, it is not hate, 
Nor low Ambition's honors lost, 

That bids me loathe my present state, 
And fly from all I prize the most : 



IV. 

It is that weariness which springs 
From all I meet, or hear, or see : 

To me no pleasure Beauty brings ; 

Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me. 



ANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



59 



.It is that settled, ceaseless gloom 
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore ; 

That will not look beyond the tomb, 
But cannot hope for rest before. 




What Exile from himself can flee ? 

To zones, though more and more remote, 
Still, still pursues, where'er I be. 

The blight of life — the demon, Thought. 



VII. 



Yet others rapt in pleasure seem. 
And taste of all that I forsake ; 

Oh ! may they still of transport dream. 
And ne'er, at least like me, awake ! 



60 CHILDE HAEOLUS canto i. 



VIII. 



Through many a clime 't is mine to go, 
With many a retrospection curst; 

And all my solace is to know, 

Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. 



IX. 

What is that worst ? Nay, do not ask — 

In pity from the search forbear : 
Smile on — nor venture to unmask 

Man's heart, and view the Hell that 's there. 



LXXXV. 

Adieu, fair Cadiz, yea, a long adieu ! 
Wlio may forget how well thy walls have stood ? 
When all were changing thou alone wcrt true, 
First to be free and last to be subdued : 
And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude, 
Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye ; 
A traitor only fell beneath the feud : 
Here all were noble, save Nobility ; 
None hugged a conqueror's chain, save fallen Chivalry ! 

LXXXVI. 

Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate ! 
They fight for freedom who were never free, 
A kingless people for a nerveless state ; 
Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee, 



CANTO I. PILGRIMAGE. 61 

True to the veriest slaves of Treachery : 
Fond of a land which gave them nought but life, 
Pride points the path that leads to Liberty; 
Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife. 
War, war is still the cry, " War even to the knife ! " 

LXXXVII. 

Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, 
Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife : 
Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe 
Can act, is acting there against man's life : 
From flashing scimitar to secret knife. 
War mouldeth there each weapon to his need — 
So may he guard the sister and the wife, 
So may he make each curst oppressor bleed, 
So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed ! 

LXXXVIII. 

Flows there a tear of pity for the dead? 
Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain ; 
Look on the hands with female slaughter red ; 
Then to the dogs resign the unburicd slain, 
Then to the vulture let each corse remain ; 
Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw. 
Let their bleached bones, and blood's unbleaching stain. 
Long mark the battle field with hideous awe : 
Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw! 

LXXXIX. 

Nor yet, alas ! the dreadful work is done. 
Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees ; 
It deepens still, the work is scarce begun. 
Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. 



62 OHILDE HAROLUS canto i. 

Fallen nations gaze on Spain ; if freed, she frees 
More than her fell Pizarros once enchained. 
Strange retribution ! now Columbia's ease 
Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustained, 
While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrained. 

XC. 

Not all the blood at Talavera shed. 
Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, 
Not Albuera lavisli of the dead. 
Have won for Spain her well asserted right. 
When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight? 
When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil ? 
How many a doubtful day shall sink in night, 
Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil. 
And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil ! 

XCI. 
And thou, my friend ! — since unavailing woe 
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain — 
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low. 
Pride might forbid even Friendship to complain : 
But thus unlaureled to descend in vain, 
By all forgotten, save the lonely breast. 
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain. 
While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest! 
What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest? 

XCII. 

Oh, known the earliest, and esteemed the most! 
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear ! 
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost, 
In dreams deny me not to see thee here ! 



CANTO I. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



63 



And Morn in secret shall renew the tear 
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, 
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier, 
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, 
And mourned and mourner lie united in repose. 

XCIIl. 
Here is one fytte of Harold's Pilgrimage : 
Ye who of him may further seek to know, 
Shall find some tidings in a future page, 
If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. 
Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so: 
Patience ! and ye shall hear what he beheld 
In other lands where he was doomed to go : 
Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, 
Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quelled. 




CANTO THE SECOND. 




Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven! — but thou, alas! 
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire — 
Goddess of Wisdom ! here thy temple was, 
And is, despite of Avar and wasting fire, 
And years, that bade thy worsliip to expire : 
But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, 
Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire 
Of men who never felt the sacred glow 
That thoughts of thee and thine on polished breasts bestow. 



II. 

Ancient of days! august Athena! where. 

Where are thy men of might ? thy grand in soul ? 

Gone — glimmering through the dream of things that were 

First in the race that led to Glory's goal, 

They won, and passed away — is this the whole? 



68 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour ! 
The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole 
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, 
Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of power ! 

III. 

Son of the morning, rise ! approach you here ! 
Come — but molest not yon defenceless urn : 
Look on this spot — a nation's sepulchre ! 
Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. 
Even gods must yield — religions take their turn: 
'T was Jove's — 'tis Mahomet's — and other creeds 
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn 
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds ; 
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds. 

IV. 
Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven — 
Is't not enough, unhappy thing! to know 
Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given. 
That being, thou wouldst be again, and go, 
Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so 
On earth no more, but mingled with the skies ? 
Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe? 
Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies : 
That little urn saith more than thousand homilies. 

V. 

Or burst the vanished Hero's lofty mound ; 
Far on the solitary shore he sleeps : 
He fell, and falling nations mourned around; 
But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, 
Nor warlike-worshipper his vigil keeps 



CANTO II. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



69 



Where dcmi-gocls appeared, as records tell. 
Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps : 
Is that a temple where a God may dwell ? 
Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered cell ! 




VI. 

Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, 
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul : 
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall, 
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul : 
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole. 
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit, 
And Passion's host, that never brooked control : 
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ. 
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ? 



70 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

VII. 
Well didst thou speak, Atliena's wisest son ! 
" All that we know is, nothing can be known." 
Why should we shrink from Avhat we cannot shun? 
Each has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan 
With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. 
Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimcth best ; 
Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron : 
There no forced banquet claims the sated guest. 
But Silence spreads the couch of ever-welcome rest. 

VIII. 
Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, there be 
A land ~of souls beyond that sable shore. 
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducec 
And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore ; 
How sweet it were in concert to adore 
With those who made our mortal labors light ! 
To hear each voice we feared to hear no more! 
Behold each mighty shade revealed to sight. 
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right! 

IX. 

There, thou! — whose love and life together fled. 
Have left me here to love and live in vain — 
Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead, 
When busy Memory flashes on my brain? 
Well — I will dream that we may meet again. 
And Avoo the vision to my vacant breast : 
If aught of young Remembrance then remain. 
Be as it may Futurity's behest, 
For me 't were bliss enough to know thy spirit blest ! 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. 71 



Here let me sit upon this massy stone, 
The marble column" s yet unshaken base ; 
Here, son of Saturn ! was thy favorite throne : 
Mightiest of many such I Hence let me trace 
The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place. 
It may not be : nor even can Fancy's eye 
Restore what Time hath labored to deface. 
Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh. 
Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. 

XI. 

But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane 
On high, where Pallas lingered, loth to flee 
The latest relic of her ancient reign ; 
The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he ? 
Blush, Caledonia ! such thy son could be ! 
England ! I joy no child he was of thine. 
Thy free-born men should spare what once was free ; 
Yet they could violate each saddening shrine. 
And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. 

XII. 

But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast. 
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared : 
Cold as the crags upon his native coast, 
His mind as barren and his heart as hard. 
Is he Avhose head conceived, whose hand prepared, 
Aught to displace Athena's poor remains : 
Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, 
Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains, 
And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains. 



11 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO II. 




XIII. 

What ! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, 
Albion was happy in Athena's tears ? 
Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung, 
Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears ; 
The ocean queen, the free Britannia bears 
The last poor plunder from a bleeding land : 
Yes, she whose generous aid her name endears, 
Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand. 
Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand. 



XIV. 

Where was thine -^gis, Pallas ! that appalled 

Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way ? 

Where Peleus' son ? wliom Hell in vain enthralled, 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. , 73 

His shade from Hades upon that dread day, 
Bursting to light in terrible array ! 
What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, 
To scare a second robber from his prey ? 
Idly he wandered on the Stygian shore, 
Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before. 

XV. 

Cold is the heart, fair Greece ! that looks on thee. 
Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved ; 
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see 
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed 
By British' hands, which it had best behoved 
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored. 
Curst be the hour when from tlieir isle they roved, 
And once again thy hapless bosom gored, 
And snatched thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorred ! 

XVI. 

But where is Harold ? shall I then forget 
To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave ? 
Little recked he of all that men regret ; 
No loved-one now in feigned lament could rave ; 
No friend the parting hand extended gave, 
Ere the cold stranger passed to other climes : 
Hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave; 
But Harold felt not as in other times. 
And left without a sigh the land of war and crimes. 

XVII. 
He that has sailed upon the dark blue sea, 
Has viewed at times, I ween, a full fair sight; 
When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be, 



74 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight; 
Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the right, 
The glorious main expanding o'er the bow, 
The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight, 
The dullest sailer wearing bravely now. 
So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow. 

XVIII. 

And oh, the little warlike world within ! 
The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy. 
The hoarse command, the busy humming din. 
When, at a Avord, the tops are manned on high : 
Hark to the boatswain's call, the cheering cry ! 
While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides ; 
Or school-boy midshipman that, standing by, 
Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides. 
And well the docile crew that skilful urcliin guides. 

XIX. 

White is the glassy deck, without a stain. 
Where on the watch the staid lieutenant walks : 
Look on that part which sacred doth remain 
For the lone chieftain, who majestic stalks. 
Silent and feared by all — not oft he talks 
With auglit beneath him, if he would preserve 
That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks 
Conquest and Fame : but Britons rarely swerve 
From Law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve. 

XX. 

Blow ! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale ! 
Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray ; 
Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail, 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. 75 

That lagging barks may make their lazy way. 
All ! grievance sore, and listless dull delay, 
To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze ! 
What leagues are lost before the dawn of day. 
Thus loitering pensive on tlie willing seas, 
The flapping sail hauled down to halt for logs like these I 

XXI. 

The moon is up ; by Heaven, a lovely eve ! 
Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand ; 
Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids believe ; 
Such be our fate when we return to land ! 
Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand 
Wakes the brisk liarmony that sailors love : 
A circle there of merry listeners stand, 
Or to some well-known measure featly move, 
Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove. 

XXI r. 

Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore ; 
Europe and Afric on each other gaze ! 
Lands of the dark-eyed maid and dusky Moor 
Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze : 
How softly on the Spanish shore she plays. 
Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown. 
Distinct, though darkening with her waning phase ; 
But Mauritania's giant-shadows frown. 
From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombre down. 

XXIII. 
'T is night, when Meditation bids us feel 
We once have loved, thougli love is at an end : 
The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, 



76 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO II. 




Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend. 
"Who with the weight of years would wish to bend, 
When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy ? 
Alas ! when mingling souls forget to blend, 
Death hath l)ut little left him to destroy ! 
Ah ! happy years ! once more who would not be a boy ? 



XXIV. 

Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, 
To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere, 
Tlic soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride, 
And flies^unconscious o'er each backward vear. 



CANTO 11. PILGRIMAGE. 11 

None are so desolate but something dear, 
Dearer than self, possesses or possessed 
A thought, and claims the homage of a tear ; 
A flashing pang ! of which the weary breast 
Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest. 

XXV. 

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, 
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene. 
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been ; 
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; 
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; 
This is not solitude ; 't is but to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. 

XXVI. 

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, 
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess. 
And roam along, the world's tired denizen, 
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless ; 
Minions of splendor shrinking from distress ! 
None that, with kindred consciousness endued, 
If we were not, Avould seem to smile the less 
Of all that flattered, followed, sought and sued ; 
This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! 

XXVIT. 

More blest the life of godly Eremite, 
Such as on lonely Athos may be seen. 
Watching at eve upon the giant height. 
Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene. 



78 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

That he wlio there at such an hour hath been 
Will wistful linger on that hallowed spot ; 
Then slowly tear him from the 'witching scene, 
Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot, 
Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot. 

XXVIII. 

Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track 
Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind ; 
Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, 
And each well-known caprice of wave and wind ; 
Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, 
Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel; 
The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind. 
As breezes rise and fall and billows swell, 
Till on some jocund morn — lo, land! and all is well. 

XXIX. 

But not in silence pass Calypso's isles. 
The sister tenants of the middle deep ; 
There for the weary still a haven smiles, 
Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep, 
And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep 
For him who dared prefer a mortal bride : 
Here, too, his boy essayed the dreadful leap 
Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide; 
"While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sighed. 

XXX. 

Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone : 
But trust not this; too easy youth, beware! 
A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne. 
And thou may'st find a new Calypso there. 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. 79 

Sweet Florence ! could another ever share 
This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine : 
But checked by every tie, I may not dare 
To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine, 
Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine. 

XXXI. 

Thus Harold deemed, as on that lady's eye 
He looked, and met its beam without a thought. 
Save admiration glancing harmless by : 
Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote, 
Who knew his votary often lost and caught, 
But knew him as his worshipper no more, 
And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought : 
Since now he vainly urged him to adore, 
Well deemed the little God his ancient sway was o'er. 

XXXII. 

Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze. 
One who, 't was said, still sighed to all he saw. 
Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze. 
Which others hailed with real or mimic awe, 
Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law ; 
All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims : 
And much she marvelled that a youth so raw 
Nor felt, nor feigned at least, the oft-told flames. 
Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames. 

XXXIII. 
Little knew she that seeming marble heart, 
Now masked in silence or withheld by pride, 
Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art. 
And spread its snares licentious far and wide; 



80 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

Nor from the base pursuit had turned aside, 
As long as aught was worthy to pursue: 
But Harold on such arts no more relied ; 
And had he doated on those eyes so blue, 
Yet never would he join the lover's whining crew. 

XXXIY. 

Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast. 
Who thinks that Avanton thing is won by sighs ; 
What careth she for hearts when once possessed ? 
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes ; 
But not too humbly, or she will despise 
Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes : 
Disguise even tenderness, if thou art wise ; 
Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes ; 
Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes. 

XXXV. 

' T is an old lesson ; Time approves it true. 
And those who know it best, deplore it most ; 
When all is won that all desire to woo. 
The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost : 
Youth wasted, minds degraded, honor lost, 
These are thy fruits, successful Passion ! these ! 
If, kindly cruel, early hope is crost, 
Still to the last it rankles, a disease. 
Not to be cured when love itself forgets to please. 

XXXVI. 

Away ! nor let me loiter in my song, 
For we have many a mountain-path to tread. 
And many a varied shore to sail along. 
By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led — 



CANTO II. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



81 



Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head 
Imagined in its little schemes of thought ; 
Or o'er in new Utopias were ared, 
To teach man what he might be, or he ought ; 
If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught. 

XXXVII. 

Dear Nature is the kindest mother still, 
Though always changing, in her aspect mild ; 
From her bare bosom let me take my fill. 
Her never-weaned, though not her favored child. 
Oh ! she is fairest in her features wild. 
Where nothing polished dares pollute her path : 
To me by day or night she ever smiled. 
Though I have marked her when none other hath, 
And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath. 




82 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

XXXVIII. 

Land of Albania ! where Iskancler rose, 
Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise. 
And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes 
Shrunk from his deeds of chivah'ous emprise: 
Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes 
On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men ! 
The cross descends, thy minarets arise. 
And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen, 
Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken. 

XXXIX. 

Childe Harold sailed, and passed the barren spot, 
"Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave ; 
And onward viewed the mount, not yet forgot, 
The lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's grave. 
Dark Sappho ! could not verse immortal save 
That breast imbued with such immortal fire? 
Could she not live who life eternal gave ? 
If life eternal may await the lyre. 
That only Heaven to which Earth's children may aspire. 

XL. 
' T was on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve 
Childe Harold hailed Leucadia's cape afar; 
A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave: 
Oft did he mark the scenes of vanished war, 
Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar ; 
Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight 
(Born beneath some remote inglorious star) 
In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight. 
But loathed the brave's trade, and laughed at martial wight. 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. 83 

XLL 

But when he saw the evening star above 
Leucadia's far-projecting roclv of woe, 
And hailed the last resort of fruitless love, 
He felt, or deemed he felt, no common glow ; 
And as the stately vessel glided slow 
Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount, 
He watched the billows' melancholy flow, 
And, sunk albeit in thouglit as he was wont, 
More placid seemed his eye, and smooth his pallid front. 

XLII. 
Morn dawns ; and with it stern Albania's hills. 
Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland peak, 
Robed half in mist, bedewed with snowy rills, 
Arrayed in many a dun and purple streak, 
Arise ; and, as the clouds along them break, 
Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer : 
Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak, 
Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear, 
And gathering storms around convulse the closing year. 

XLIII. 
Now Harold felt himself at length alone, 
And bade to Christian tongues a long adieu ; 
Now he adventured on a shore unknown, 
Which all admire, but many dread to view : 
His breast was armed 'gainst fate, his wants were few ; 
Peril lie sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet, 
The scene w^as savage, but the scene was new ; 
This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet, 
Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcomed summer's heat. 



84 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

XLIV. 
Here the red cross, for still the cross is here, 
Though sadly scoffed at by the circumcised, 
Forgets that pride to pampered Priesthood dear ; 
Churchman and votary alike despised. 
Foul Superstition ! howsoe'er disguised. 
Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross, 
For whatsoever symbol thou art prized, 
Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss ! 
Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross ? 

XLV. 

Ambracia's gulph behold, where once was lost 
A world for woman, lovely, harmless thing ! 
In yonder rippling bay, their naval host 
,Did many a Roman chief and Asian king 
To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring: 
Look where the second Cfesar's trophies rose! 
Now, like the hands that reared them, withering : 
Imperial Anarchs, doubling human woes! 
God ! was thy globe ordained for such to win and lose ? 

XLVT. 
From the dark barriers of that rugged clime. 
Even to the centre of Illyria's vales, 
Childe Harold passed o'er many a mount sublime. 
Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales ; 
Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales 
Are rarely seen; nor can fair Tcmpe boast 
A charm they know not; loved Parnassus fails, 
Though classic ground and consecrated most. 
To match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast. 



CANTO II. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



85 



XLVII. 
He passed bleak Pindus, Acherusia's lake, 
And left the primal city of the land, 
And onwards did his further journey take 
To greet Albania's chief, whose dread command 
Is lawless law ; for with a bloody hand 




Pie sways a nation, turbulent and bold : 
Yet here and there some daring mountain-band 
Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold 
Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold. 



XL VI IT. 
Monastic Zitza ! from tliy shady brow, 
Thou small, but favored spot of holy ground ! 
Where'er we gaze, around, above, below, 



86 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found ! 
Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound, 
And bluest skies that harmonize the whole : 
Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound 
Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll 
Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul. 

XLIX. 

Amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted hill, 
Which, were it #ot for many a mountain nigh 
Rising in lofty ranks, and loftier still, 
Might well itself be deemed of dignity. 
The convent's white walls glisten fair on high : 
Here dwells the caloyer, nor rude is he. 
Nor niggard of his cheer ; the passer by 
Is welcome still ; nor heedless will he flee 
From hence, if he delight kind Nature's sheen to see. 

L. 
Here in the sultriest season let him rest, 
Fresh is the green beneath those aged trees ; 
Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast, 
From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze : 
The plain is far beneath — oli ! let him seize 
Pure pleasure while he can ; the scorching ray 
Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease : 
Then let his length the loitering pilgrim lay. 
And gaze, untired, the morn, the noon, the eve away. 

LI. 

Husky and huge, enlarging on the sight, 
Nature's volcanic amphitheatre, 
Cliimajra's alps extend from left to right: 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. 87 

Beneath, a living valley seems to stir ; 
Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the momitain-fir 
Nodding above : behold black Acheron ! 
Once consecrated to the sepulchre. 
Pluto ! if this be hell I look upon, 
Close shamed Elysium's gates, my shade shall seek for none ! 

LIL 

Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view ; 
Unseen is Yanina, though not remote. 
Veiled by the screen of hills : here men are few. 
Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot ; 
But, peering down each precipice, the goat 
Browseth ; and, pensive o'er his scattered flock, 
The little shepherd in his white capote 
Doth lean his boyish form along the rock, 
Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock. 

LIII. 

Oh ! where, Dodona ! is thine aged grove, 
Prophetic fount, and oracle divine ? 
What valley echoed the response of Jove ? 
What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine ? 
All, all forgotten — and shall man repine 
That his frail bouds to fleeting life are broke? 
Cease, fool ! the fate of gods may well be thine : 
Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak ? 
When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath the stroke ! 

LTV. 
Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail ; 
Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye 
Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale 



CHILDE HAIIOLD'S 



CANTO II. 



As ever Spring yclad in grassy dye : 
Even on a plain no humble beauties lie, 
Where some bold river breaks the long expanse, 
And woods along the banks arc waving high. 
Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance, 
Or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight's solemn trance. 

LV. 

The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit, 
And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by; 
The shades of wonted night were gathering yet, 




When, down the steep banks winding warily, 
Childc Harold saw, like meteors in the sky, 
The glittering minarets of Tepalcn, 
Whose walls overlook the stream ; and drawing nigh, 
He heard the busy hum of warrior-men 
Swelling the breeze that sighed along the lengthening glen. 



LVI. 



He passed the sacred Haram's silent tower. 
And underneath the wide o'erarching gate 
Surveyed the dwelling of this chief of power, 



CANTO 11. PILGRIMAGE. 89 

Where all aroimcl proclaimed his high estate. 
Amidst no common pomp the despot sate, 
While busy preparation shook the court, 
Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and Santons wait ; 
Within, a palace, and without, a fort : 
Here men of every clime appear to malvc resort. 

LVII. 

Richly caparisoned, a ready row 
Of armed horse, and many a warlike store 
Circled the wide-extending court below : 
Above, strange groups adorned the corridore ; 
And oft-times through the area's echoing door 
Some high-capped Tartai- spurred his steed away : 
The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, 
Here mingled in their many-hued array, 
While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day. 

LVIII. 

The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, 
With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, 
And gold-embroidered garments fair to see ; 
The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon ; 
The Delhi with his cap of terror on. 
And crooked glaive ; the lively, supple Greek ; 
And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son ; 
The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak, 
Master of all around, too potent to be meek, 

LIX. 
Are mixed conspicuous : some recline in groups, 
Scanning the motley scene that varies round ; 
There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops. 



90 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

And some that smoke, and some that pUiy, arc found; 
Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground; 
Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate ; 
Hark ! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound, 
The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret, 
"There is no god but God!— to prayer — lo! God is great!" 

LX. 

Just at this season Ramazani's fast 
Through the long day its penance did maintain : 
But when the lingering twilight hour was past, 
Revel and feast assumed the rule again : 
Now all was bustle, and the menial train 
Prepared and spread the plenteous board within ; 
The vacant gallery now seemed made in vain, 
But from the chambers came the mingling din. 
As page and slave anon were i)assing out and in. 

LXI. 
Here woman's voice is never heard : apart. 
And scarce permitted, guarded, veiled, to move. 
She yields to one her person and her heart. 
Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove : 
For, not unhappy in her master's love, 
And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares — 
Blest cares ! all other feelings far above ! — 
Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears, 
Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares ! 

Lxri. 

In marljled-paved pavilion where a spring 
Of living water from the centre rose, 
Whose bubljli ng did a genial freshness fling, 



CANTO II. PILGFJMAGE. 91 

And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose, 
Ali reclined, a man of war and woes ; 
Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace. 
While Gentleness her milder radiance throws 
Along that aged venerable face, 
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace. 

LXIII. 
It is not that j'on hoary lengthening beard 
111 suits the. passions which belong to youth; 
Love conquers age — so Haliz hath averred, 
So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth — 
But crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth, 
Beseeming all men ill, but most the man 
In years, have marked him with a tiger's tooth ; 
Blood follows blood, and through their mortal span. 
In bloodier acts conclude those who Avith blood began, 

LXLV. 

'Mid many things most new to ear and eye 

The pilgrim rested here his weary feet. 

And gazed around on Moslem luxury, 

Till quickly wearied with that spacious seat 

Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreat 
s. Of sated Grandeur from the city's noise : 

And were it humbler it in sooth were sweet ; 

But Peace abhorreth artificial joys. 
And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both destroys. 

LXV. 
Fierce are Albania's children, yet they lack 
Not virtues, were those virtues more mature 
Where is the foe that ever saw their back ? 



92 



CHILDE HAROLUS 



CANTO II. 



Who can so well the toil of war endure ? 
Their native fastnesses not more secure 
Than they in doubtful time of troublous need : 
Their wrath how deadly ! but their friendship sure, 
When Gratitude or Valor bids them bleed, 
Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead. 




LXVI. 

Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower 

Thronging to war in splendor and success ; 

And after viewed them, when, within their power, 



CANTO II. FILGRIMAGE. 93 

Himself awhile the victim of distress ; 
That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press : 
But. these did shelter him beneath their roof, 
When less barbarians would have cheered him less, 
And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof — 
In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the proof! 

LXVII. 

It chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark 
Full on the coast of Suli's shaggy shore, 
When all around was desolate and dark ; 
To land was perilous, to sojourn more ; 
Yet for awhile the mariners forbore, 
Dubious to trust where treachery might lurk : 
At length they ventured forth, thougli doubting sore 
That those who loathe alike the Frank and Turk 
Might once again renew their ancient butcher-work. 

LXVIII. 

Vain fear ! the Suliotes stretched tlie Avelcome hand, 
Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp, 
Kinder than polished slaves thoueh not so bland. 
And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp. 
And filled the bowl, and trimmed the cheerful lamp, 
And spread their fare ; though homely, all they had : 
Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare stamp — 
To rest the weary and to soothe the sad, 
Doth lesson happier men, and shames at least the bad. 

LXIX. 

It came to pass, that when he did address 
Himself to quit this mountain-land. 
Combined marauders half-way barred egress, 



94 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

And wasted far and near with glaive and brand ; 
And therefore did he take a trusty band 
To traverse Acarnania's forest wide, 
In war well seasoned, and with labors tanned, 
Till he did greet white Achelous' tide. 
And from his further bank -^tolia's wolds espied. 

LXX. 

Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove, 
And weary weaves retire to gleam at rest. 
How brown the foliage of the green hill's grove, 
Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast. 
As winds come lightly whispering from the west. 
Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene : 
Here Harold was received a welcome guest ; 
Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene. 
For many a joy could he from Night's soft presence glean. 

LXXL 

On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed, 
The feast was done, the red wine circling fast, 
And he that unawares had there ygazed 
With gaping wonderment had stared aghast ; 
For ere night's midmost, stillest hour was past 
The native revels of the troop began ; 
Each Palikar his sabre from him cast. 
And bounding hand in hand, man linked to man, 
Yelling their uncouth dirge, long daunced the kirtled clan. 

LXXII. 

Childe Harold at a little distance stood 
And viewed, but not displeased, the revelrie. 
Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude: 



!ANTO II. PILGBIMAGE. 95 

In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see 
Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee, 
And, as the flames along their faces gleamed, 
Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free. 
The long wild locks that to their girdles streamed. 
While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half screamed . 



Tambourgi ! Tambourgi ! thy larum afar 
Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war; 
All the sons of the mountains arise at the note, 
Chimariot, Illyrian, and dai'k Suliote ! 

II. 

Oh ! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, 

In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote ? 

To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, 

And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock. 

III. 

Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive 
The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live ? 
Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego ? 
What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe ? 

IV. 

Macedonia sends forth her invincible race ; 
For a time they abandon the cave and the chase : 
But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before 
The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er. 



Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves, 
And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, 
Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar. 
And track to his covert the captive on shore. 



96 CHILLE HAROLD'S canto ii. 



VI. 

I ask not the pleasures that riches supply, 
My sabre shall win wliat the feeble must buy ; 
Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair, 
And many a maid from her mother shall tear. 

VII. 

I love the fair face of the maid in her j^outh. 
Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall sooth ; 
Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre, 
And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. 

VIII. 

Remember the moment when Previsa fell, 
The shrieks of the conquered, the conqueror's yell ; 
The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, 
The wealthy we slaughtered, the lovely we spared. 

IX. 

I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear. 
He neither must know who would serve the Vizier : 
Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne'er saw 
A chief ever £:lorious like Ali Pashaw. 



Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped. 
Let the yellow-haired Giaours view his horse-tail with dread; 
When his Delhis come dashing in blood o'er the banks. 
How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks ! 

XI. 

Selictar ! unsheath then our chief's scimitar : 
Tambourgi ! thy larum gives promise of war. 
Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore. 
Shall view us as victors, or view us no more ! 



CANTO II. 



PILGBUIAGE. 



97 



Lxxm. 

Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! 
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! 
Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, 
And long accustomed bondage uncreatc ? 
Not such thy sons who whilome did await, 
The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, 




In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait — 
Oh ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 
Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb ? 



LXXIV. 

Spirit of freedom ! when on Phyle's brow 
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, 

7 



98 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto n. 

Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour wliich now 
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic phiin ? 
Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, 
But every carle can lord it o'er thy land ; 
Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, 
Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand. 
From birth till death enslaved ; in word, in deed unmanned. 

LXXV. 

In all save form alone, how changed ! and who 
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, 
Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew 
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty ! 
And many dream withal the hour is nigh 
That gives them back their fathers' heritage: 
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, 
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, 
Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page. 

LXXVI. 

Hereditary bondsmen ! know ye not 
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? 
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought ? 
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye ? No ! 
True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, 
\ But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. 
\ Shades of the Helots ! triumph o'er your foe ! 
Greece ! change thy lords, thy state is still the same ; 

Thy glorious dav is o'er, but not thine years of shame. 

\ 
\ 

\ LXXVII. 

\ 

The city won for Allah from the Giaour, 

The giaour from Othman's race again may wrest ; 



CANTO II. FTLGRIMAGE. 99 

And the Serai's impenetrable tower 
Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest ; 
On "Wahab's rebel brood who dared divest 
The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, 
May wind their path of blood along the West ; 
But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil. 
But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil. 

LXXVIII. 
Yet mark their mirth — ere lenten days begin, 
That penance which their holy rites prepare 
To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin. 
By daily abstinence and nightly prayer ; 
But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, 
Some days of joyauncc are decreed to all, 
To take of plcasaunce each his secret share, 
In motley robe to dance at masking ball, 
And join the mimic train of merry Carnival. 

LXXIX. 

And whose more rife with merriment than thine, 
Oh Stamboul ! once the empress of their reign ? 
Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine. 
And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : 
(Alas ! her woes will still pervade my strain !) 
Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng. 
All felt the common joy they now must feign, 
Nor oft I 've seen such sight, nor heard such song. 
As wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along. 

LXXX. 

Loud was the lightsome tumult of the shore. 
Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, 



100 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO II. 



And timely echoed back the measured oar, 
And rippling waters made a pleasant moan : 
The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, 
And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 
' T was, as if darting from her heavenly throne, 
A brighter glance her form reflected gave, 
Till sparkling billows seemed to light the banks they lave. 




LXXXI. 

Glanced many a light caique along the foam, 
Danced on the shore the daughters of the land, 
Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home, 
While many a languid eye and thrilling hand 
Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, 
Or gently prest, returned the pressure still : 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. 101 

Oh Love ! young Love ! bound in thy rosy band, 
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, 
These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill ! 

LXXXII. 

But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, 
Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain, 
Even through the closest searment half betrayed ? 
To such the gentle murmurs of the main 
Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain ; 
To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd 
Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain : 
How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, 
And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud ! 

LXXXIII. 

This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, 
Tf Greece one true-born patriot still can boast: 
Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace, 
The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost. 
Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, 
And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword : 
Ah ! Greece ! they love thee least who owe thee most ; 
Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record 
Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde ! 

LXXXIV. 

When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood. 
When Thebes Epaminondas rears again. 
When Athens' children are with hearts endued. 
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, 
Then may'st thou be restored ; but not till then. 
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ; 



102 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

An hour may lay it in the dust : and when 
Can man its shattered splendor renovate, 
Recal its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ? 

LXXXV. 

And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, 
Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou! 
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow 
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now : 
Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow, 
Commingling slowly with heroic earth, 
Broke by the share of every rustic plough : 
So perish monuments of mortal birth. 
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth ; 

LXXXVI. 

Save where some solitary column mourns 
Above its prostrate brethren of the cave ; 
Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns 
Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave; 
Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, 
"Where the gray stones and unmolested grass 
Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave. 
While strangers only not regardless pass. 
Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh " Alas ! " 

LXXXVII. 

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild ; 
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, 
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled. 
And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields ; 
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds. 
The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air ; 



CANTO II. PILGBUIAGE. 103 

Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, 
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare ; 
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. 

LXXXVIII. 

Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground; 
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, 
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around. 
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold 
Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone : 
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. 

LXXXIX. 

The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same ; 
Unchanged in all except its foreign lord. 
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame 
The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde 
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword. 
As on the morn to distant Glory dear. 
When Marathon became a magic word ; 
Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear 
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career, 

XC. 

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow ; 
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear ; 
Mountains above. Earth's, Ocean's plain below ; 
Death in the front. Destruction in the rear ! 
Such was the scene — what now remaineth here ? 
What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground. 



104 



CEILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO II. 




Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear ? 
The rifled urn, the violated mound, 
The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around. 



XCI. 
Yet to the remnants of thy splendor past 
Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng; 
Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, 
Hail the bright clime of battle and of song; 
Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue 
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; 
Boast of the aged! lesson of the young! 
Which sages venerate and bards adore, 
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. 



CANTO II. PILGRIMAGE. 105 

XCII. 

The parted bosom clings to wonted home, 
If auglit that 's kindred cheer the welcome hearth ; 
He that is lonely hither let him roam, 
And gaze complacent on congenial earth. 
Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth ; 
But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide, 
And scarce regret the region of his birth, 
When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, 
Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died. 

XCIII. 
Let such approach this consecrated land. 
And pass in peace along the magic waste : 
But spare its relics — let no busy hand 
Deface the scenes, already how defaced ! 
Not for such purpose were these altars placed : 
Revere the remnants nations once revered : 
So may our country's name be undisgraced. 
So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was reared. 
By every honest joy of love and life endeared ! 

XCIV. 
For thee, who thus in too protracted song 
Hast soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays, 
Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng 
Of louder minstrels in these later days : 
To such resign the strife for fading bays — 
111 may such contest now the spirit move 
Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise ; 
Since cold each kinder heart that might approve. 
And none are left to please when none are left to love. 



106 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto ii. 

XCV. 

Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one ! 
Whom youth and youth's affection bound to me; 
Who did for me what none beside have done, 
Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy tliee. 
What is my being ? thou hast ceased to be ! 
Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home. 
Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see — 
Would they had never been, or were to come ! 
Would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam ! 

XCVI. 
Oh ! ever loving, lovely, and beloved ! 
How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, 
And clings to thoughts now better far removed ! 
But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last. 
All thou could'st have of mine, stern Death ! thou hast ; 
The parent, friend, and now the more than friend : 
Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast. 
And grief with grief continuing still to blend. 
Hath snatched the little joy that life had yet to lend. 

XCVII. 
Then must 1 plunge again into the crowd, 
And follow all that Peace disdains to seek? 
Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud, 
False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek, 
To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak ; 
Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer, 
To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique ; 
Smiles form the channel of a future tear. 
Or raise the writhing lip witli ill-dissembled sneer. 



CANTO II. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



107 



XCVIII. 
What is the worst of woes that wait on age ? 
What stamps the wrinkle deejier on the brow ? 
To view each loved one blotted from life's page, 
And be alone on earth, as I am now. 
Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, 
O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroyed ; 
Roll on vain days ! full reckless may ye flow. 
Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed. 
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloyed. 




CANTO THE THIRD. 




Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child ! 
Ada ! sole daughter of my Iiouse and heart ? 
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, 
And then we parted, — not as now we part, 
But with a hope. — 

Awaking with a start, 
The waters heave around me, and on high 
The winds lift up their voices : I depart. 
Whither I know not ; but the hour 's gone by 
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye. 



II. 
Once more upon the waters ! yet once more ! 
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
That knows his rider. Welcome to tlieir roar! 
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! 



112 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed, 
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, 
Still must I on ; for I am as a weed, 
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail 
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. 

III. 
In my youth's summer I did sing of One, 
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind ; 
Again I seize the theme tlien but begun. 
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind 
Bears the cloud onwards : in that Tale I find 
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears. 
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, 
O'er which all heavily the journeying years 
Plod the last sands of life, — where not a flower appears. 

IV. 

Since my young days of passion — joy, or pain. 
Perchance my heart and harp ha^c lost a string, 
And both may jar : it may be that in vain 
I would essay as I have sung to sing. 
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling; 
So that it wean me from the weary dream 
Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling 
Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem 
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. 

V. 

He, who grown aged in this world of woe. 
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, 
So that no wonder waits him ; nor below 
Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, 




^ 

\ 






I 

1 



I 



CANTO III. PILGBIMAGE. 115 

Cut to his heart again with the keen knife 
Of silent, sharp endurance : he can tell 
Wh}' thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife 
With airy images, and shapes which dwell 
Still unimpaired, though old, in the souFs haunted cell. 

VI. 

'T is to create, and in creating live 
A being more intense, that we endow 
With form our fancy, gaining as we give 
Tlie life we image, even as 1 do now. 
What am I ? Nothing ; but not so art thou. 
Soul of my thought ! with whom I traverse earth. 
Invisible but gazing, as I glow 
Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, 
And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' dearth. 

VII. 
Yet must I think less wildly: — I have thought 
Too long and darkly, till my brain became, 
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, 
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: 
And thus, untauglit in youth my heart to tame. 
My springs of life were poisoned. 'T is too late ! 
Yet am I changed ; though still enough the same 
In strength to bear what time can not abate. 
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. 

VIII. 
Something too much of this: — but now 'tis past, 
And the spell closes with its silent seal. 
Long-absent Harold reappears at last ; 
He of the breast Avhicli fain no more would feel. 



116 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

Wrung with the wounds whicli kill not, but ne'er heal ; 
Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him 
In soul and aspect as in age : years steal 
^ Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb ; 

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. 

IX. 
His had been quaffed too quickly, and he found 
The dregs were wormwood ; but he filled again. 
And from a purer fount, on holier ground, 
And deemed its spring perpetual ; but in vain ! 
Still round him clung invisibly a chain 
Which galled for ever, fettering though unseen, 
And heavy though it clanked not ; worn with pain, 
Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen. 
Entering with every step he took through many a scene. 

X. 

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixed 
Again in fancied safety with his kind. 
And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed 
And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, 
That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind ; 
And he, as one, might midst the many stand 
Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find 
Fit speculation, such as in strange land 
He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand. 

XI. 
But wlio can view the ripened rose, nor seek 
To wear it? who can curiously behold 
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek. 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ? 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



117 



Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold 
The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ? 
Harold, once more within the vortex, rolled 
On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, 
Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime. 

XII. 

But soon he knew himself the most unfit 
Of men to herd with man ; with whom he held 
Little in common ; untaught to submit 
His thoughts to others, though his soul was quelled 
In youth by his own thoughts ; still uncompelled, 
He would not yield dominion of his mind 
To spirits against whom his own rebelled ; 
Proud though in desolation ; which could find 
A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. 




118 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

XIII. 
Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends ; 
Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home ; 
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends. 
He had the passion and the power to roam ; 
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam. 
Were unto him companionship ; they spake 
A mutual language, clearer than the tome 
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake 
For Nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake. 

XIV. 

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, 
Till he had peopled them with beings bright 
As their own beams ; and earth, and earth-born jars. 
And human frailties, were forgotten quite : 
Could he have kept his spirit to that flight 
He had been happy; but this clay will sink 
Its spark immortal, envying it the light 
To which it mounts, as if to break the link 
That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink. 

XV. 

But in man's dwellings he became a thing 
Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, 
Drooped as a wild-born falcon with clipped wing, 
To whom the boundless air alone were home: 
Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome. 
As eagerly the barred-up bird will beat 
His breast and beak against his wiry dome 
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat 
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. 



CANTO III. 



PII^PJMAGE. 119 



XVI. 

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, 
Witli nought of hope left, but with less of gloom ; 
The very knowledge that he lived in vain. 
That all was over on this side the tomb. 
Had made Despair a smilingness assume. 
Which, though 'twere wild, — as on the plundered wreck 
When mariners would madly meet their doom 
With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, — 
Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. 

XVII. 

Stop! — for thy tread is on an Empire's dust! 
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below ! 
Is the spot marked with no colossal bust ? 
Nor column trophied for triumphal show ? 
None ; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, 
As the ground was before, thus let it be ; — 
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow ! 
And is this all the world has gained by thee. 
Thou first and last of fields ! king-making Victory ? 

xvm. 

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls. 
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo ! 
How in an hour the power which gave annuls 
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too ! 
In " pride of place " here last the eagle flew, 
Then tore with l)loody talon the rent plain. 
Pierced by the shaft of banded iiations through ; 
Ambition's life and labors all were vain ; 
He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain. 



120 CRUDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

XIX. 

Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit 
And foam in fetters ; — but is Earth more free ? 
Did nations combat to make One submit; 
Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty ? 
What ! shall reviving Thraldom again be 
The patched-up idol of enlightened days ? 
Shall wc, who struck the Lion down, shall we 
Pay the Wolf homage ? proffering lowly gaze 
And servile knees to thrones ? No ; prove before ye praise ! 

XX. 

If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more ! 
In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears 
For Europe's flowers long rooted up before 
The tramplcr of her vineyards ; in vain years 
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, 
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord 
Of roused-up millions : all that most endears 
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword 
Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. 

XXI. 

/IThere was a sound of revelry by night, 
And Belgium's capital had gathered then 
Her Beauty and her Cliivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; 
A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



121 




XXII. 

Did ye not hear it ? — Xo ; 't \vas but the wind, 
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; 
On with tlie dance! let joy be unconfined; 
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — 
But, hark! — that heavy sound breaks in mice more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! 
Arm ! arm ! it is — it is — the^cannon's opening roar ! 



xxiir. 

Within a windowed niche of that hio-h hall 
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain ; he did hear 



122 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

That sound the first amidst the festival, 
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear ; 
And wlien they smiled because he deemed it near, 
His heart more truly knew that peal too well 
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier. 
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell : 
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. 

XXIV 

Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at tlie praise of their own loveliness ; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
"Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes. 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ? 

XXV. 

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed. 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; 
And the dee}) thunder peal on peal afar ; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb. 
Or whispering, with white lips — " The foe ! they come ! they come ! " 

XXVI. 

And wild and high the " Cameron's gathering " rose ! 
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albvn's hills 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



123 



Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : — 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 
Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills 
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
With the fierce native daring which instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand years, 
And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears ! 




XXVII. 

And Ardennes waves above them lier green leaves. 
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 
Grieving, if auglit inanimate e'er grieves, 
Over the uiir-;turning brave, —: alas ! 



124 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

Ere evening to be trodden like tlic grass 
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valor, rolling on the foe 
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. 

XXVIII. 
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life. 
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay. 
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 
The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day 
Battle's magnificently stern array ! 
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent 
The earth is covered thick with other clay, 
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, 
Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent! 

XXIX. 

Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine; 
Yet one I would select from that ])roud throng. 
Partly because they blend me with his line, 
And partly that I did his sire some wrong. 
And partly that bright names will hallow song ; 
And his was of the bi'avest, and Avhen showered 
The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along, 
Even where the thickest of war's tempest lowered. 
They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard I 

XXX. 

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee. 
And mine were nothing, had I such to give ; 
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree. 
Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 125 

And saw around me the wide field revive 
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring 
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, 
With all her reckless birds upon the wing, 
I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring. 

XXXI. 

I turned to thee, to thousands, of whom each 
And one as all a ghastly gap did make 
In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach 
Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake ; 
The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake 
Those whom they thirst for ; though the sound of Fame 
May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake 
The fever of vain longing, and the name 
So honored but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. 

XXXII. 

They mourn, but smile at length, and, smiling, mourn: 
The tree will wither long before it fall ; 
The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn ; 
The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall 
In massy hoariness ; the ruined wall 
Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone ; 
The bars survive the captive they enthrall; 
The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun ; 
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on : 

XXXIII. 

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass 

In every fragment multiplies, and makes 

A thousand images of one that was. 

The same, and still the more, the more it breaks ; 



126 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, 
Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold. 
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, 
Yet withers on till all without is old. 
Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. 

XXXIV. 

There is a very life in our despair. 
Vitality of poison, — a quick root 
Which feeds these deadly branches ; for it Avere 
As nothing did we die ; but Life will suit 
Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, 
Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore, 
All ashes to the taste. Did man compute 
Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er 
Such hours 'gainst years of life, — say, would he name threescore ? 

XXXV. 

The Psalmist numbered out the years of man : 
They are enough ; and if thy tale be true, 
Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span. 
More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo ! 
Millions of tongues record thee, and anew 
Their children's lips shall echo them, and say — 
" Here, where the sword united nations drew. 
Our countrymen were warring on that day ! " 
And this is much, and all which Avill not pass away. 

XXXVI. 

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, 

Whose spirit antithetically mixed 

One moment of the mightiest, and again 

On little objects with like firmness fixed. 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 131 

Extreme in all things ! liadst thou been betwixt, 
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been ; 
For daring made thy rise as fall : thou seek'st 
Even now to reassume the imperial mien. 
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene ! 

XXXVII. 

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou ! 
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name 
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now 
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, 
Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became 
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert 
A god unto thyself ; nor less the same 
To the astounded kingdoms all inert. 
Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert. 

XXXVIII. 
Oh, more or less than man — in high or low. 
Battling with nations, flying from the field ; 
Now making monarclis' necks thy footstool, now 
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; 
An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, 
But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, 
However deeply in men's spirits skilled, 
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, 
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star. 

XXXIX. 

Yet well thy soul hath brooked t!ie turning tide 
With that untaught innate philosophy, 
Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, 
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. 



/ 



130 / CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

/When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, 
/ To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled 
/ With a sedate and all-enduring eye; — 

W^hen Fortune fled her spoiled and favorite child, 
He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled. 

XL. 

Sager than in thy fortunes ; for in them 
Ambition steeled thee on too far to show 
That just habitual scorn which could contemn 
Men and their thoughts ; 't was wise to feel, not so 
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow. 
And spurn the instruments thou wert to use 
Till they were turned unto thine overthrow : 
'T is but a worthless world to win or lose ; 
So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. 

XLT. 

If, like a tower upon a headland rock. 
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone. 
Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock ; 
But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, 
Their admiration thy best weapon shone ; 
The part of Philip's son was thine, not then 
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) 
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men ; 
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. 

XLII. 
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell. 
And there hath been thy bane ; there is a fire 
And motion of the soul which will not dwell 
In its own narrow being, but aspire 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 131 

Beyond the fitting medium of desire ; 
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore. 
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire 
Of aught but rest ; a fever at the core, 
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. 

XLIII. 
This makes the madmen who have made men mad 
By their contagion ; Conquerors and Kings, 
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add 
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things 
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs. 
And are themselves the fools to those they fool ; 
Envied, yet how unenviable ! what stings 
Are theirs ! One breast laid open were a school 
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule: 

XLIV. 

Their breath is agitation, and their life 
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last. 
And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, 
That should their days, surviving perils past. 
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast 
With sorrow and supineness, and so die ; 
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste 
With its own flickering, or a sword laid by 
Which eats into itself and rusts ingloriously. 

XLV. 

He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find 

The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow ; 

He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 

Must look down on the hate of tliose below. 



132 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto til 

Though high above the sun of glory glow. 
And far heyieath the earth and ocean spread, 
Rouyid him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head. 
And thus reward the toils Avhich to those summits led. 

XLVI. 

Away with these ! true Wisdom's world will he 
Within its own creation, or in thine. 
Maternal Nature ! for w^ho teems like thee. 
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? 
There Harold gazes on a work divine, 
A blending of all beauties ; streams and dells, 
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine. 
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells 
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells. 

XLVII. 
And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind. 
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd. 
All tcnantless, save to the crannying wind. 
Or holding dark communion with the cloud. 
There was a day when they were young and proud, 
Banners on high, and battles passed below ; 
But they who fought are in a bloody shroud. 
And those which waved arc shredless dust ere now. 
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. 

XLVIII. 
Beneath these battlements, within those walls. 
Power dwelt amidst her passions ; in proud state 
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls, 
Doing his evil will, nor less elate 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



133 



Than mightier heroes of a longer date. 
What want these outlaws conquerors should have 
But History's purchased page to call them great? 
A wider space, or ornamented grave ? 
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave. 




XLIX. 
In their baronial feuds and single fields, 
What deeds of prowess unrecorded died! 
And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields. 
With emblems well devised by amorous pride, 
Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide ; 
But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on 
Keen contest and destruction near allied. 
And many a tower for some fair mischief won, 
Saw the discolored Rhine beneath its ruin run. 



134 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

L. 

But thou, exulting and abounding river ! 
Making thy waves a blessing as they flow 
Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever 
Could man but leave thy bright creation so, 
Nor its fair promise from the surface mow 
With the sharp scythe of conflict, — then to see 
Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know 
Earth paved like Heaven ; and to seem such to me 
Even now what wants thy stream ? — that it should Lethe be. 

LI. 

A thousand battles have assailed thy banks. 
But these and half their fame have passed away, 
And Slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks ; 
Their very graves are gone, and what are they ? 
Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday, 
And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream 
Glassed with its dancing light the sunny ray; 
But o'er the blackened memory's blighting dream 
Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem. 

LII. 

Thus Harold inly said, and passed along. 
Yet not insensible to all which here 
Awoke the jocund birds to early song 
In glens which might have made even exile dear: 
Though on his brow were graven lines austere. 
And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place 
Of feelings fierier far but less severe, 
Joy was not always absent from his face, 
But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace. 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 135 



LIII. 

Nor was all love shut from him, though his days 
Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. 
It is in vain that we would coldly gaze 
On such as smile upon us; the heart must 
Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust 
Hath weaned it from all worldlings : thus he felt, 
For there was soft remembrance and sweet trust 
In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, 
And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt. 

LIV. 

And he had learned to love — I know not why. 
For this in such as him seems strange of mood — 
The helpless- looks of l)looming infancy. 
Even in its earliest nurture ; what subdued 
To change like this a mind so far imbued 
With scorn of man, it little boots to know ; 
But thus it was ; and though in solitude 
Small power the nipped affections have to grow. 
In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow. 

LV. 

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said. 
Which unto his was bound by stronger ties 
Than the church links withal ; and, though unwed, 
That love was pure, and, far above disguise, 
Had stood the test of mortal enmities 
Still undivided, and cemented more 
By peril, dreaded most in female eyes ; 
But this was firm, and from a foreign shore 
Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour ! 



136 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto tii. 



The castled crag of Drachenfels 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 
Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
Between the banks which bear the vine, 
And hills all rich with blossomed trees. 
And fields which promise corn and wine ; 
And scattered cities crowning these. 
Whose far white walls along them shine, 
Have strewed a scene, which I should see 
With double joy wert thou with me 1 

II. 

And peasant girls, with deep-blue eyes, 

And hands which offer early flowers, 

Walk smiling o'er this paradise; 

Above, the frequent feudal towers 

Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, 

And many a rock which steeply lowers, 

And noble arch in proud decay, 

Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers ; 

But one thing want these banks of Rhine, — 

Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! 

III. 

I send the lilies given to me ; 
Though long before thy hand they touch, 
I know that they must withered be. 
But yet reject them not as such; 
For I have cherished them as dear. 
Because they yet may meet thine eye, 
And guide thy soul to mine even here, 
When thou behold'st them droojiing nigh. 
And know'st them gathered by the Rhine, 
And offered from my heart to thine ! 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



137 




IV. 

The river nobly foams and flows, 

The charm of this enchanted ground, 

And all its thousand turns disclose 

Some fresher beauty varying round; 

The haughtiest breast its wish might bound 

Through life to dwell delighted here ; 

Nor could on earth a spot be found 

To Nature and to me so dear, 

Could thy dear eyes in following mine 

Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine ! 



138 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

LVI. 

By Coblcntz, on a rise of gentle ground, 
There is a small and simple pyramid, 
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound ; 
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid, 
Our enemy's, — but let not that forbid 
Honor to Marceau ! o'er whose early tomb 
Tears, big tears, gushed from the rough soldier's lid. 
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom. 
Falling for Franco, whose rights he battled to resume. 

LVII. 
Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career, — 
His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes ; 
And fitly may the stranger lingeiing here 
Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose ; 
For he was Freedom's champion, one of those, 
The few in number, who had not o'erstepped 
The charter to chastise which she bestows 
On such as wield her weapons ; he had kept 
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept. 

LYIII. 
Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattered wall 
Black with the miner's blast, upon her height 
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball 
Rebounding idly on her strength did light ; 
A tower of victory ! from whence the flight 
Of baffled foes was watched along the plain : 
But Peace destroyed what War could never blight. 
And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain — 
On which the iron shower for years had poured in vain. 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 139 

LIX. 

Adieu to thee, fair Rhine ! How long delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way ! 
Thine is a scene alike where souls united 
Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray ; 
And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey 
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here. 
Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay. 
Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere. 
Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year. 

LX. 

Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu ! 
There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; 
Tlic mind is colored by thy every hue ; 
And if reluctantly the eyes resign 
Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine ! 
'T is with the thankful glance of parting praise ; 
More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine. 
But none unite in one attaching maze 
The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days, 

LXI. 

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom 
Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, 
The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, 
The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, 
Tlie wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been 
In mockery of man's art ; and these withal 
A race of faces happy as the scene, 
Whose fertile bounties here extend to all. 
Still springing o'er thy banks, tliough Empires near them fall. 



140 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO III. 



LXII. 



But these recede. Above me are the Alps, 
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps. 
And throned Eternity in icy halls 




Of cold suldimity, where forms and falls 
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow ! 
All that expands the spirit, yet appalls, 
Gather around these summits, as to show 
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. 



CANTO III. PILGRIM AGE. 141 

LXIII. 
But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, 
There is a spot should not be passed in vain, — 
Morat ! the proud, the patriot field ! where man 
May gaze on ghastly troi)liies of the slain. 
Nor blush for those who conquer'd on that plain ; 
Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, 
A bony heap, through ages to remain. 
Themselves their monument ; — the Stygian coast 
Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost. 

LXIV. 

While Waterloo with Cannae's carnage vies, 
Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; 
They were true Glory's stainless victories. 
Won by the unambitious heart and hand 
Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, 
All unbought champions in no princely cause 
Of vice-entailed Corruption ; they no land 
Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws 
Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause. 

LXV. 

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears 
A gray and grief- worn aspect of old days ; 
'T is the last remnant of the wreck of years, 
And looks as with the wild-bewildered gaze 
Of one to stone converted by amaze. 
Yet still with consciousness ; and there it stands 
Making a marvel that it not decays. 
When the coeval pride of human hands. 
Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands. 



142 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

LXVI. 

And there — oh ! sweet and sacred be the name ! — 
JuUa — the daughter, the devoted — gave 
Her youth to Heaven ; her heart, beneath a claim 
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. 
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and liers woukl crave 
The life she lived in ; but the judge was just, 
And then she died on him she could not save. 
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust. 
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. 

LXVII. 

But these are deeds which sbould not pass away, 
And names that must not wither, though the earth 
Forgets her empires with a just decay, 
The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth ; 
The high, the mountain-majesty of worth 
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, 
And from its immortality look forth 
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow, 
Imperishably pure beyond all things below. 

LXVIII. 
Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face. 
The mirror where the stars and mountains view 
The stillness of their aspect in each trace 
Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue : 
There is too much of man here, to look through 
With a fit mind the might which I behold; 
But soon in me shall Loneliness renew 
Thoughts hid, but not less clierished than of old. 
Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold. 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 143 

LXIX. 

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind; 
All are not fit with them to stir and toil, 
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind 
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil 
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil 
Of our infection, till too late and long 
We may deplore and struggle with, the coil. 
In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 
Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. 

LXX. 

There, in a moment, we may plunge our years 
In fatal penitence, and in the blight 
Of our own soul turn all our blood to tears. 
And color things to come with hues of night ; 
The race of life becomes a hopeless flight 
To those that walk in darkness : on the sea, 
The boldest steer but where their ports invite, 
But there are wanderers o'er Eternity 
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be. 



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144 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

LXXT. 

Is it not better, then, to be alone, 
And love Earth only for its earthly sake ? 
By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, 
Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake. 
Which feeds it as a mother who doth make 
A fair but froward infant her own care, 
Kissing its cries away as these awake ; — 
Is it not better thus our lives to wear. 
Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear ? 

LXXII. 

I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me; and to me, 
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum 
Of human cities torture ; I can see 
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be 
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 
Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, 
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain 
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. 

LXXIII. 
And thus I am absorbed, and this is life : 
I look upon the peopled desert past. 
As on a place of agony and strife, 
Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast, 
To act and suffer, but remount at last 
With a fresh pinion ; which I feel to spring. 
Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast 
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing. 
Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling. 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 145 

LXXIV. 

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free 
Prom what it hates in this degraded form, 
Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be 
Existent happier in the fly and worm, — 
When elements to elements conform. 
And dust is as it should be, shall I not 
Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm ? 
The bodiless thought ? the Spirit of each spot ? 
Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot? 

LXXV. 

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part 
Of me and of my soul, as I of them ? 
Is not the love of these deep in my heart 
With a pure passion? should I not contemn 
All objects, if compared with these ? and stem 
A tide of suffering, rather than forego 
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm 
Of those whose eyes are only turned below, 
Gazing upon the ground, with tlioughts which dare not glow? 

LXXVI. 

But this is not my theme ; and I return 
To that which is immediate, and require 
Those who find contemplation in the urn, 
To look on One, whose dust was once all fire, 
A native of the land where I respire 
The clear air for a while — a passing guest, 
Where he became a being, — whose desire 
Was to be glorious ; 't was a foolish quest, 
The which to gain and keep he sacrificed all rest. 

10 



146 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

LXXVII. 
Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, 
The apostle of affliction, he who threw 
Enchantment over passion, and from woe 
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew 
The breath which made him wretched ; yet he knew 
How to make madness beautiful, and cast 
O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue 
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they passed 
The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast. 

LXXVIII. 

His love was passion's essence : — as a tree 
On fire by lightning, with ethereal flame 
Kindled he was, and blasted ; for to be 
Thus, and enamoured, were in him the same. 
But his was not the love of living dame, 
Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams. 
But of ideal beauty, which became 
In him existence, and o'erflowing teems 
Along his burning page, distempered though it seems. 

LXXIX. 

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this 
Invested her with all that 's wild and sweet ; 
This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss 
Which every morn his fevered lip would greet 
From hers, who but with friendship his would meet; 
But to that gentle touch through brain and breast 
Flashed the thrilled spirit's love-devouring heat; 
In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest. 
Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possessed. 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 14T 

LXXX. 

His life was one long war with self-sought foes, 
Or friends by him self-banished ; for his mind 
Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary^ and chose 
For its own cruel sacrifice the kind, 
'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. 
But he was phrensied, — wherefore, who may know ? 
Since cause might be which skill could never find ; 
But he was phrensied, by disease or woe, 
To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show. 

LXXXI. 

For then he was inspired, and from him came, 
As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore. 
Those oracles which set the world in flame, 
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more : 
Did he not this for France, which lay before 
Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years ? 
Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore, 
Till by the voice of him and his compeers 
Roused up to too much wrath which follows o'ergrown fears ? 

LXXXII. 

They made themselves a fearful monument! 
The wreck of old opinions — things which grew, 
Breathed from the birth of time: the veil they rent, 
And what behind it lay all earth shall view. 
But good with ill they also overthrew. 
Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild 
Upon the same foundation, and renew 
Dungeons, and thrones, which the same hour refilled, 
As heretofore, because ambition was self-willed. 



148 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

LXXXIII. 

But this will not endure, nor be endured ! 
Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. 
They might have used it better, but, allured 
By their new vigor, sternly have they dealt 
On one another ; pity ceased to melt 
With her once natural charities. But they, 
Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt, 
They were not eagles, nourished with the day ; 
What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey ? 

LXXXIV. 

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar ? 
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear 
That which disfigures it ; and they who war 
With their own hopes, and have been vanquished, bear 
Silence, but not submission : in his lair 
Fixed Passion holds his breath, until the hour 
Which shall atone for years ; none need despair : 
It came, it cometh, and will come, — the power 
To punish or forgive — in one we shall be slower. 

LXXXV. 

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake 
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from distraction ; once I loved 
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved. 
That I with stern delidits should e'er have been so moved. 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



149 



LXXXVI. 

It is the hush of night, and all between 

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 

Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 

Save darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear 




Precipitously steep ; and drawing near, 
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore. 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar. 
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more 

LXXXVII. 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 

His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 

At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 



150 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the hill, 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 

LXXXVIII. 

Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ! 
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
Of men and empires, — 't is to be forgiven. 
That in our aspirations to be great 
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, 
And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
A beauty and a mystery, and create 
In us such love and reverence from afar. 
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. 

LXXXTX. 

All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep. 
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most ; 
And silent, as wc stand in thoughts too deep : — 
All heaven and earth are still : from the high host 
Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast. 
All is concentred in a life intense, 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost. 
But hath a part of being, and a sense 
Of that which is of all Creator and defence. 

xc. 

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone ; 
A truth, which through our being then doth melt 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 151 

And purifies from self : it is a tone, 
T]ie soul and source of music, which makes known 
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm 
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
Binding all things with beauty ; — 't would disarm 
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 

XCI. 
Not vainly did the early Persian make 
His altar the high places and the peak 
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take 
A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek 
The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak, 
Upreared of human hands. Come, and compare 
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air. 
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer! 

XCII. 

The sky is changed I — and such a change ! O night, 
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong. 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along. 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud. 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue. 
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud. 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

XCIII. 

And this is in the night. — Most glorious night! 
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 



152 



CHILDE HAIIOLD'S 



CANTO III. 



A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
How the lit hike shines, a phosphoric sea, 
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! 
And now again 't is black, — and now the glee 
Of the lond hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 

XCIY. 

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene 




That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ; 
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed ; — 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage. 



CANTO III. PILGFdMAGE. 153 

XCV. 
Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way 
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand : 
For here, not one, but many, make their play. 
And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand. 
Flashing and cast around : of all the band, 
The brightest through these parted hills hath forked 
His lightnings, — as if he did understand, 
That in such gaps as desolation worked. 
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked. 

XCVI. 

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye, 
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll 
Of your departing voices is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless, — if I rest. 
But where of ye, tempests ! is the goal ? 
Are ye like those within the human breast ? 
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest ? 

XCVII. 

Could I embody and unbosom now 
That which is most within me, — could I wreak 
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, 
All that I would have sought, and all I seek. 
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into 07ie word. 
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; 
But as it is, I live and die unheard, 
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 



154 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

XCVIII. 
The morn is up again, the dewy morn, 
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom. 
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn. 
And living as if earth contained no tomb, — 
And glowing into day ; we may resume 
The march of our existence : and thus I, 
Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may find room 
And food for meditation, nor pass by 
Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. 

XCIX. 

Clarens ! sweet Clarens, birth-place of deep Love ! 
Thine air is the young breath of passionate tliought ; 
Thy trees take root in Love ; the snows above 
The very glaciers have his colors caught. 
And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought 
By rays which sleep there lovingly : the rocks. 
The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought 
In them a refuge from the w^orldly shocks. 
Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks. 

C. 

Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod, — 
Undying Love's, who here ascends a throne 
To which the steps are mountains ; where 4ihe god 
Is a pervading life and light, — so shown 
Not on those summits solely, nor alone 
Li the still cave and forest; o'er the flower 
His eye is sparkling and his breath hath blown, 
His soft and summer breath, whose tender power 
Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour. 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 155 

CI. 

All things are here of Mm; from the black pines, 
Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar 
Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines 
Which slope his green path downward to the shore. 
Where the bowed waters meet him, and adore, 
Kissing his feet with murmurs ; and the wood, 
The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar. 
But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood. 
Offering to him and his a populous solitude ; 

CII. 

A populous solitude of bees and birds. 
And fairy-formed and many-colored things, 
Who worship him with notes more sweet than words, 
And innocently open their glad wings. 
Fearless and full of life : the gush of springs. 
And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend 
Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings 
■The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend. 
Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end. 

cm. 

He who hath loved not here would learn that lore. 
And make his heart a spirit ; he who knows 
That tender mystery will love the more, 
For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes, 
And the world's waste, have driven him far from those. 
For 't is his nature to advance or die ; 
He stands not still, but or decays or grows 
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie 
With the immortal lights in its eternity ! 



156 CHILDE HABOLD'S canto hi. 

CIV. 

'T was not for iiction chose Rousseau this spot, 
Peopling it with affections; but he found 
It was the scene wliich Passion must allot 
To the mind's puriiied beings ; 't was the ground 
"Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound, 
And hallowed it with loveliness : 't is lone. 
And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound. 
And sense, and sight of sweetness ; here the Rhone 
Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have reared a throne. 

CV. 

Lausanne I and Ferncy ! ye have been the abodes 
Of names which unto you bequeathed a name ; 
Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, 
A path to perpetuity of fame : 
They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim. 
Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile 
Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame 
Of Heaven again assailed, if Heaven the while 
On man and man's research could deign do more than smile. 

CVI. 

The one was fire and fickleness, a child. 
Most mutable in wishes, but in mind 
A Avit as various, — gay, grave, sage, or wild, — 
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined ; 
He multiplied himself among mankind, 
The Proteus of their talents : but liis own 
Breathed most in ridicule, — which, as the wind, 
Blew where it listed, laying all things prone, — 
Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne. 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



157 



cvrr. 

The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought. 
And hiving wisdom with each studious year. 
In meditation dwelt, v.ith learning wrought. 
And shaped his weapon with an edge severe. 
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer; 
The lord of irony, — that master-spell, 
Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear. 
And doomed him to tlic zealot's ready Hell, 
Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. 




cvni. 



Yet, peace be with their ashes, — for by them, 

If merited, the penalty is paid ; 

It is not om's to judge, — far less condemn; 

The hour must come when such things shall be made 



158 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto hi. 

Known unto all, — or hope and dread allayed 
By slumber, on one pillow, — in the dust, 
Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed ; 
And when it shall revive, as is our trust, 
'T will he to be forgiven, or suffer what is just. 

CIX. 

But let me quit man's works, again to read 
His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend 
This page, which from my reveries 1 feed. 
Until it seems prolonging without end. 
The clouds above me to the white Alps tend. 
And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er 
May be permitted, as my steps I bend 
To their most great and growing region, where 
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air. 

ex. 

Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee, 
Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, 
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee. 
To the last halo of the chiefs and sages 
Who glorify thy consecrated pages ; 
Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still 
The fount at which the panting mind assuages 
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill. 
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill. 

CXI. 

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme 
Renewed with no kind auspices : — to feel 
We are not what we have been, and to deem 
We are not what we should be, — and to steel 



CANTO III. 



PILGRIMAGE. 159 



The heart against itself; and to conceal, 
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught — 
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal, — 
AVhich is the tyrant spirit of our thought. 
Is a stern task of soul. — No matter, — it is taught. 

CXII. 
And for these words, thus woven into song, 
It may be that they are a harmless wile, — 
The coloring of the scenes which fleet along, 
Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile 
My breast, or that of others, for a while. 
Fame is the thirst of youth, — but I am not 
So young as to regard men's frown or smile, 
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot ; 
I stood and stand alone, — remembered or forgot. 

CXIII. 

I have not loved the world, nor the world me ; 
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed 
To its idolatries a patient knee. 
Nor coined my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud 
In worship of an echo ; in the crowd 
They could not deem me one of such : I stood 
Among them, but not of them ; in a shroud 
Of thoughts which w^ere not their thoughts, and still could. 
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued. 

cxrv. 
I have not loved the world, nor the world me, — 
But let us part fair foes ; I do believe. 
Though I have found them not, that there may be 
Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, 



160 CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO III. 



And virtues which are merciful, nor weave 
Snares for the failing: 1 would also deem 
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve ; 
That two, or one, are almost what they seem, — 
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream. 

cxv. 

My daughter! with thy name this song begun — 
My daughter I with thy name thus much shall end — 
I see thee not, I hear thee not, but none 
Can be so wrapped in thee; thou art the friend 
To whom the shadows of far years extend : 
Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold, 
My voice shall with thy future visions blend, 
And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold, — 
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould. 

CXVI. 

To aid thy mind's development, to watch 
Thy dawn of little joys, to sit and see 
Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch 
Knowledge of objects, — wonders yet to thee I 
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee. 
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss, — 
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me; 
Yet this was in my nature : — as it is, 
I know not what is there, yet something like to this. 

CXVII. 

Yet, though dull hate as duty should be taught, 
I know that thou wilt love me ; though my name 
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught 
With desolation, and a broken claim : 



CANTO III. PILGRIMAGE. 161 

Though the grave closed between us, — 't were the samej 
I know that thou wilt lo^-e me ; though to drain 
3Iy blood from out thy being were an aim, 
And an attainment, — all would be in vain, — 
Still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life retain, 

CXVIII. 

The child of love, though born in bitterness. 
And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire 
These were the elements, and thine no less. 
As yet such are around thee, but thy fire 
Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher. 
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers ! O'er the sea. 
And from the mountains where I now respire, 
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee. 
As, with a sigh, I deem thou mightst have been to me ! 




\ 



CANTO THE FOURTH. 




I. 

I STOOD in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand, 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles. 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles ! 



n. 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers 

At airy distance, with majestic motion, 

A ruler of the waters and their powers : 

And such she was ; — her daughters had their dowers 

From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 



166 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv 

Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 
In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. 

III. 

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 
And silent rows the songless gondolier; 
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear: 
Those days are gone — but beauty still is here. 
States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die. 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear. 
The pleasant place of all festivity, 
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy ! 

IV. 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond 
Her name in story, and her long array 
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 
Above the dogeless city's vanished sway : 
Ours is a trophy which will not decay 
With the Rialto ; Shylock and the Moor, 
And Pierre, can not be swept or worn away — 
The keystones of the arch ! though all were o'er. 
For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 

V. 

The beings of the mind are not of clay ; 

Essentially immortal, they create 

And multiply in us a brighter ray 

And more beloved existence : that which Fate 

Prohibits to dull life, in tliis our state 

Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, 



CANTO IV, 



pilgrimage:. 



1G7 



First exiles, then replaces what we hate ; 
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, 
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. 



VI. 



Such is the refuge of our youth and age, 
The first from hope, the last from vacancy ; 
And this worn feeling peoples many a page, 




And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye: 
Yet there are things whose strong reality 
Outshines our fairy-land ; in shape and hues 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky. 
And the strange constellations which the Muse 
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse. 



168 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

VII. 
I saw or dreamed of such, — but let them go — 
They came hke truth, and disappeared like dreams ; 
And, whatsoe'er they were — are now but so: 
I could replace them if I would ; still teems 
My mind with many a form which aptly seems 
Such as I sought for, and at moments found ; 
Let these too go — for waking Reason deems 
Such overweening phantasies unsound, 
And other voices speak, and other sights surround. 

VIII. 
I 've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes 
Have made me not a str; .xger ; to the mind 
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise, 
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find 
A country with — ay, or without mankind: 
Yet was I born where men are proud to be. 
Not without cause ; and should I leave behind 
The inviolate island of the sage and free. 
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 

IX. 
Perhaps I loved it well: and should I lay 
My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 
My spirit shall resume it — if we may 
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 
My hopes of being remembered in my line 
With my land's language: if too fond and far 
These aspirations in their scope inchne, — 
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are. 
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 169 



X. 

My name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honored by the nations — let it be — 
And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me — 
" Sparta hath many a wortliier son than he." 
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; 
The thorns which 1 have reaped are of the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me, — and "I bleed: 
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. 

XI. 

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; 
And, annual marriage now r>o more renewed, 
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, 
Neglected garment of her widowhood ! 
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood 
Stand, but in mockery of his withered, power, 
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued. 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour 
When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower. 

XII. 

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt ; 
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains 
Clank over sceptred cities ; nations melt 
From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt 
The sunshine for a while, and downward go 
Like lauwine loosened from the mountain's belt ; 
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! 
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. 



170 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO IV, 



XIII. 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, 
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun ; 
But is not Doria's menace come to pass ? 
Are they not bridled? — Venice, lost and won, 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done. 




Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose! 
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun. 
Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes. 
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. 



XIV. 



In youth she was all glory, — a new Tyre ; 
Her very byword sprung from victory, 
The " Planter of the Lion," which through fire 
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; 



€ANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 171 

Though making many slaves, herself still free, 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite ; 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye 
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight ! 
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. 

XV. 

Statues of glass — all shivered — the long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust ; 
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile 
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; 
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, 
Have yielded to the stranger : empty halls, 
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too oft remind her who and wiiat enthralls, 
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. 

XVI. 

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 
And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war, 
Eedemption rose up in the Attic Muse, 
Her voice their only ransom from afar : 
See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car 
Of the o'ermastered victor stops, the reins 
Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains, 
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. 

XVII. 

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine. 
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, 
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine, 
Tliy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot 



172 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

Which ties thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot 
Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, 
Albion ! to thee : the Ocean queen should not 
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall 
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. 

XVIIT. 
I loved her from my boyhood — she to me 
"Was as a fairy city of the heart, 
Rising like water-columns from the sea, 
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart ; 
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art. 
Had stamped her image in me, and even so. 
Although I found her thus, we did not part ; 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe, 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

XIX. 

I can repeople with the past — and of 
The present there is still for eye and thought. 
And meditation chastened down, enough; 
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; 
And of the happiest moments Avhich were wrought 
Within the web of my existence, some 
From thee, fair Venice ! have their colors caught : 
There are some feelings Time can not benumb, 
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. 

XX. 

But from their nature will the tannen grow 
Loftiest on loftiest and least-sheltered rocks, 
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below 
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks 



CANTO IV. FILGBIMAGE. 173 

Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks 
The howling tempest, till its height and frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak, gray granite, into life it came. 
And grew a giant tree ; — the mind may grow the same. 

XXI. 

Existence may be borne, and the deep root 
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode 
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute 
The camel labors with the heaviest load, 
And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestowed 
In vain should sucli example be ; if they, 
Things of ignoble or of savage mood, 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay 
May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. 

XXII. 

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed, 
Even by the sufferer ; and in each event 
Ends. Some, with hope replenished and rcbuoyed. 
Return to whence they came — with like intent. 
And weave their web again ; some, bowed and bent. 
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time. 
And perish with the reed on which they leant; 
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime. 
According as their souls were formed to sink or climb: 

XXIII. 

But ever and anon of griefs subdued 
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued ; 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 



174 CHILBE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

Back on the heart the Aveight which it would fling 
Aside for ever : it may be a sound — 
A tone of music — summer's eve — or spring — 
A flower — the wind — the ocean — which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound ; 

XXIV. 

And how and why we know not, nor can trace 
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind. 
But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface 
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, 
Which out of things familiar, undesigned, 
When least we deem of such, calls up to view 
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, — 
The cold, the changed, perchance the dead — anew, 
The mourned, the loved, the lost — too many! — yet how few! 

XXV. 

But my soul wanders ; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track 
Fallen states and buried greatness, o'er a land 
Which was the mightiest in its old command, 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand. 
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free. 
The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea, 

XXVI. 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome ! 
And even since, and now, fair Italy ! 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



175 



Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
More rich than other climes' fertility ; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced. 




XXVII. 

The Moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains ; Heaven is free 
From clouds, but of all colors seems to be 
Melted to one vast Iris of the "West, 



176 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air — an island of the blest ! 

XXVIII. 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 
With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rlia^tian hill. 
As Day and Night contending were, until 
Nature reclaimed her order : — gently flows 
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose, 
Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows, 

XXIX. 

Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar. 
Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues. 
From the rich sunset to the rising star. 
Their magical variety diffuse : 
And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 
Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
With a new color as it gasps away, 
The last still loveliest, till — 't is gone — and all is gray. 

XXX. 

There is a tomb in Arqua; — reared in air. 
Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose 
The bones of Laura's lover : here repair 
Many familiar with his well-sung woes, 
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 177 



From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes: 
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name 
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. 

XXXI. 

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died, 
The mountain-village where his latter days 
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride 
An honest pride — and let it be their praise. 
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 
His mansion and his sepulchre ; both plain 
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain 
Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane. 

XXXTI. 

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt 
Is one of that complexion which seems made 
For those who their mortality have felt, 
And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, 
Which shows a distant prospect far away 
Of busy cities, now in vain displayed. 
For they can lure no further ; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, 

XXXIIT. 

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, 
And shining in the brawling brook, whereby. 
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours 
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye 
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 
If from society we learn to live, 

12 



rs CHILDE HABOLD'S canto iv. 

'T is solitude should teach us how to die ; 
It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give 
No hollow aid ; alone — man with his God must strive : 

XXXIV. 

Or, it may be, with demons, who impair 
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey 
In melancholy bosoms, such as were 
Of moody texture from their earliest day, 
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay. 
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass away; 
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, 
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. 

XXXV. 

Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets, 
Whose symmetry was not for solitude, 
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats 
Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood 
Of Este, which for many an age made good 
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore 
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood 
Of petty power impelled, of those Avho wore 
The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. 

XXXVI. 

And Tasso is their glory and their shame. 

Hark to his strain ! and then survey his cell ! 

And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame, 

And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell : 

The miserable despot could not quell 

The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend 



'ANTO IV. 



PILGPJMAGE. 



179 




With the surroimdino; maniacs, in the hell 
Where he had pkinged it. Glory without end 
Scattered the clouds away — and on that name attend 



XXXVIT. 

The tears and praises of all time ; while thine 
Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink 
Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line 
Is shaken into nothing; but the link 
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think 
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn — 
Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee ! if in another station born, 
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn 



180 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

XXXYIII. 

Thou! formed to eat, and be despised, and die. 
Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou 
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty : 
He! with a glory round his furrowed brow. 
Which emanated then, and dazzles now 
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, 
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow 
No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre, 
That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire ! 

XXXTX. 

Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 't was his 
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong 
Aimed with her poisoned arrows, — but to miss. 
victor unsurpassed in modern song ! 
Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long 
The tide of generations shall roll on, 
And not the whole combined and countless throng 
Compose a mind like thine ? though all in one 
Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form a sun. 

XL. 

Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those, 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine. 
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry : first rose 
The Tuscan father's Comedy Divine ; 
Then, not unequal to the Florentine, 
The southern Scott, the minstrel who called forth 
A new creation with his magic line. 
And, like the Ariosto of the North, 
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. 



CANTO IV. FILGEIMAGE. 181 

XLI. 

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 
The iron crown of laureFs mimicked leaves; 
Nor was the ominous element unjust, 
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves 
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, 
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow; 
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below 
Whate'er it strikes ; — yon head is doubly sacred now. 

XLII. 

Italia ! Italia ! thou who hast 
The fatal gift of beauty, which became 
A funeral dower of present woes and past. 
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, 
And annals graved in characters of flame. 
God! that thou wert in thy nakedness 
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim 
Thy right, and awe the robbers back who press 
To shed thy blood and drink the tears of thy distress ; 

XLIII. 

Then mightst thou more appall ; or, less desired, 
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored 
For thy destructive charms ; then, still untired. 
Would not be seen the armed torrents poured 
Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde 
Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po 
Quaff blood and water ; nor the stranger's sword 
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, 
Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe. 



182 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

XLIV. 

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him, 
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind, 
The friend of Tully : as my bark did skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
^gina lay, Piraeus on the right. 
And Corinth on the left ; I lay reclined 
Along the prow, and saw all these unite 
In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight ; 

XLV. 

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but upreared 
Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, 
Which only make more mourned and more endeared 
The few last rays of their far-scattered light, 
And the crushed relics of their vanished might. 
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, 
These sepulchres of cities, which excite 
Sad Avonder, and his yet surviving page 
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. 

XLVI. 

That page is now before me, and on mine 
His country's ruin added to the mass 
Of perished states he mourned in their decline, 
And I in desolation : all that ivas 
Of then destruction is ; and now, alas ! 
Rome — Rome imperial, bows her to tlie storm. 
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form. 
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



183 



XLVII. 

Yet, Italy ! through every other land 
Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side ; 
Mother of Arts, as once of arms, thy hand 
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide ; 
Parent of our Religion ! whom the wide 
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! 
Europe, repentant of her parricide. 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 




XLVIII. 
But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, 
"Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps 
A softer feeling for her fairy halls. 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps 
To laughing life, with her redundant horn. 
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 



184 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

"Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, 
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn. 

XLIX. 

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills 
The air around with beauty ; we inhale 
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 
Part of its immortality ; the veil 
Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold 
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail ; 
And to the fond idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould. 

L. 

We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
Reels with its fulness ; there — for ever there — 
Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, 
We stand as captives, and would not depart. 
Away ! — there need no words, nor terms precise. 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart. 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : 
Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize. 

LI. 

Appearedst thou not to Paris in this guise? 
Or to more deeply blest Anchises ? or, 
In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies 
Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War ? 
And gazing in thy face as toward a star, 
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn. 
Feeding on thy sweet cheek ! while thy lips are 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 185 

With lava kisses melting while they burn, 
Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn ! 

LII. 

Glowing, and circumfused in speeehless love. 
Their full divinity inadequate 
That feeling to express, or to improve, 
The gods become as mortals, and man's fate 
Has moments like their brightest ; but the weight 
Of earth recoils upon us ; — let it go ! 
We can recall such visions, and create. 
From what has been, or might be, things which grow 
Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below. 

LIII. 
I leave to learned fingers and wise hands. 
The artist and his ape, to teach and tell 
How well his connoisseurship understands 
The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell : 
Let these describe the undescribable : 
I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream 
Wherein that image shall for ever dwell ; 
The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream 
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 

LIV. 
In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 
Even in itself an immortality. 

Though there were nothing save the past, and this, 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos : — here repose 
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his. 



186 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

The starry Galileo, with his woes; 
Here Machiavelli's earth, returned to whence it rose. 

LV. 
These are four minds, which, lilvc the elements. 
Might furnish forth creation. — Italy ! 
Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents 
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, 
And hath denied, to every other sky, 
Spirits which soar from ruin : thy decay 
Is still impregnate with divinity, 
Which gilds it Avith revivifying ray ; 
Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. 

LVI. 

But where repose the all Etruscan three — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they. 
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit ! he 
Of the Hundred Talcs, of love — where did they lay 
Their bones, distinguished from our common clay 
In death as life? Are they resolved to dust, 
And have their country's marbles nought to say ? 
Could not her qharries furnish forth one bust ? 
Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust ? 

LVII. 

Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar, 
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore ; 
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war, 
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore 
Their children's children would in vain adore 
With the remorse of ages ; and the crown 
Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



187 



Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, 
His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled — not thine own. 

LVIII. 
Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed 
His dust, — and lies it not her great among, 




With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed 
O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue ? 
That music in itself, wliose sounds are song. 
The poetry of speech ? No ; — even liis tomb 
Uptorn, must bear the hyasna bigot's wrong, 
No more amidst the meaner dead find room. 
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for ivliom I 

LTX. 

And Santa Croco wants their mighty dust ; 
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
Tlie Cffisar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, 
Did but of Rome's best son remind her more : 



188 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

Happier Ravenna ! on thy hoary shore, 
Fortress of falling empire! honored sleeps 
The immortal exile ; — Arqua, too, her store 
Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, 
While Florence vainly begs her banished dead and weeps. 

LX. 

What is her pyramid of precious stones ? 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones 
Of merchant-dukes? the momentary dews 
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, 
Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, 
Are gently pressed with far more reverent tread 
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. 

LXI. 

There be more things to greet the heart and eyes 
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine, 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ; 
There be more marvels yet — but not for mine ; 
For I have been accustomed to entwine 
My thoughts witli Nature rather in the fields, 
Than Art in galleries : though a work divine 
Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields 

LXII. 

Is of another temper, and I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthao-inian's warlike whiles 



CANTO IV. PILGEUIAGE. 189 

Come back before me, as his skill -beguiles 
The host between the momitains and the shore, 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files, 
And torrents, swoln to rivers with their gore, 
Reck through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er, 

LXITI. 

Like to a forest felled by mountain winds ; 
And such the storm of battle on this day, 
And such the phrensy, whose convulsion blinds 
To all save carnage, "^hat, beneath the fray, 
An earthquake reeled unheededly away ! 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet. 
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 
Upon their bucklers for a winding-sheet ; 
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet ! 

LXIV. 
The Earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity; they saw 
Tlie Ocean round, but had no time to mark 
The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law, 
In them suspended, recked not of the awe 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw 
From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing herds 
Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words. 

LXV. 
Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; 
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 



190 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain ; 
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead 
Made the earth wet, and turned the unwilling waters red. 

LXVI. 

But thou, Clitumnus ! in thy sweetest wave 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear 
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer 
Grazes ; the purest god of gentle waters ! 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear ; 
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daugliters ! 

Lxvir. 

And on thy happy shore a temple still, 
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, 
Upon a mild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps 
The finny darter with the glittering scales. 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps ; 
While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. 

LXVI I r. 

Pass not unblest the Genius of the place ! 
If through the air a zephyr more serene 
Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green. 



CANTO IV. 



PILGFdMAGE. 



If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 
Of Aveary life a moment lave it clean 
With Nature's baptism, — 'tis, to him ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. 



191 







LXIX. 

The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice ; 
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ; 
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from this 
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, 



192 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

LXX. 

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, 
With its uncmptied cloud of gentle rain, 
Is an eternal April to the ground. 
Making it all one emerald : — how profound 
The gulf! and how the giant element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, 
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent 
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent 

LXXI. 

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 
More like the fountain of an infant sea 
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 
Of a new world, than only thus to be 
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, 
With many windings, through the vale! — Look back! 
Lo ! where it comes like an eternity, 
As if to sweep down all things in its track. 
Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract, 

LXXII. 

Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge. 
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 
Its brilliant lines with all their beams unshorn : 
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, 
Love watching Madness witli unalterable mien. 



CANTO IV. PILGBIMAGE. 193 

LXXIII. 

Once more upon the Avoody Apennine, 
The infant Alps, which — had I not before 
Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar 
Tlie thundering lauwine — might be worshipped more; 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear 
Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar 
Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, 
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, 

LXXIV. 

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; 
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly 
Like spirits of the spot, as 't were for fame. 
For still they soared unutterably high : 
I've looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye ; 
Athos, Olympus, ^tna. Atlas, made 
These hills seem things of lesser dignity. 
All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed 
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid 

LXXV. 

For our remembrance, and from out the plain 
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break. 
And on the curl hangs pausing : not in vain 
May he, who will, his recollections rake. 
And quote in classic raptures, and awake 
The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorred 
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake. 
The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word 
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 

13 

\ 



194 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

LXXVI. 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned 
My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath taught 
My mind to meditate what then it learned, 
Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought 
By the impatience of my early thought, 
That, with the freshness wearing out before 
My mind could relish what it might have sought, 
If free to choose, I cannot now restore 
Its health, but what it then detested, still abhor. 

LXXVII. 

Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so, 
Not for thy faults, but mine ; it is a curse 
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow. 
To comprehend, but never love thy verse ; 
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse 
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art. 
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce. 
Awakening without wounding the touched heart. 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's bridge we part. 

LXXVIII. 

Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



195 




LXXIX. 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands. 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; 
An empty urn within her withered hands, 
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago ; 
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, 
Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? 
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress ! 



LXXX. 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride ; 
She saw her glories star bv star expire. 



196 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, 
Where the car climbed the capitol ; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site. 
Chaos of ruins ! who shall ti'ace tlio void, 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 
And say, " Here was, or is," where all is doubly niglit ? 

Lxxxr. 

The double night of ages, and of her. 
Night's daughter. Ignorance, hath wrapped and wrap 
All round us ; we but feel our way to err : 
The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map. 
And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; 
But Rome is as the desert, where we steer 
Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry " Eurelca ! " it is clear — 
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 

LXXXII. 

Alas, the lofty city ! and alas, 
The trebly hundred triumphs ! and the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! 
Alas, for TuUy's voice, and Virgil's lay. 
And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be 
Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free ! 

LXXXIII. 

Oh thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel. 
Triumphant Sylla ! Tlioii, who didst subdue 
Thy country's foes ere thou would pause to feel 



CAxNTO IV. FILGBIMAGE. 197 

The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due 
Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew 
O'er prostrate Asia ; — thou, who with thj frown 
Annihilated senates — Roman, too, 
With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down 
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown — 

LXXXIV. 

The dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine 
To what would one day dwindle that which made 
Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine 
By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid ? 
She who was named Eternal, and arrayed 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veiled 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed, 
Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed. 
Her rushing wings — Oh ! she who was Almighty hailed ! 

LXXXV. 

Sylla was first of victors ; but our own 
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ; he 
Too swept off senates while he hewed the throne 
Down to a block — immortal rebel ! See 
What crimes it costs to be a moment free 
And famous through all ages ! but beneath 
His fate the moral lurks of destiny ; 
His day of double victory and death 
Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath. 

LXXXVI. 

The third of the same moon whose former course 
Had all but crowned him, on the selfsame day 
Deposed him gently from his throne of force, 



198 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. 
And showed not Fortune thus how fame and sway, 
And all we deem delightful, and consume 
Our souls to compass through each arduous way. 
Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb ? 
Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom 1 

LXXXVII. 

And thou, dread statue ! yet existent in 
The austerest form of naked majesty. 
Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, 
At thy bathed base the bloody Csesar lie. 
Folding his robe in dying dignity. 
An offering to thine altar from the queen 
Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! did he die. 
And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been 
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ? 

LXXXVIII. 

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! 
She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art. 
Thou standest, — mother of the mighty heart. 
Which the great founder sucked from thy wild teat. 
Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart, 
And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou yet 
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? 

LXXXIX. 

Thou dost; — but all thy foster-babes are dead — 
The men of iron ; and the world hath reared 
Cities from out their sepulchres : men bled 



CANTO iv. PILGRIMAGE. 199 

In imitation of the things they feared, 
And fought and conquered, and the same course steered, 
At apish distance ; but as yet none have, 
Nor could, the same supremacy have neared. 
Save one vain man, who is not in the grave. 
But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave — 

XC. 

The fool of false dominion — and a kind 
Of bastard Ca3sar, following him of old 
With steps unequal ; for the Roman's mind 
Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould, 
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold. 
And an immortal instinct which redeemed 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, 
Alcides with the distaff now he seemed 
At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beamed, 

XCI. 

And came — and saw — and conquered ! But the man 
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, 
Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van. 
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory. 
With a deaf heart which never seemed to be 
A listener to itself, was strangely framed ; 
With but one weakest weakness — vanity. 
Coquettish in ambition, still he aimed — 
At what ? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed ? 

XCII. 
And would be all or nothing — nor could wait 
For the sure grave to level him; few years 
Had fixed him with the Caesars in his fate, 



200 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

On whom we tread : for this the conqueror rears 
The arch of triumph! and for this the tears 
And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed, 
An universal deluge, which appears 
Without an ark for wretched man's abode, 
And ebbs but to reflow ! — Renew thy rainbow, God ! 

XCIII. • 

What from this barren being do we reap ? 
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, 
Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep. 
And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale ; 
Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil 
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale 
Lest their own judgments should become too bright, 
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. 

XCIV. 

And thus they plod in sluggish misery, 
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, 
Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, 
Bequeathing their hereditary rage 
To the new race of inborn slaves, Avho wage 
War for their chains, and rather than be free, 
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage 
Within the same arena where they see 
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. 

XCV. 
I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between 
Man and his Maker — but of things allowed. 
Averred, and known, and daily, hourly seen — 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE, 201 



The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed, 
And the intent of tyranny avowed, 
The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown 
The apes of him who humbled once the proud, 
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne ; 
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 

XCVI. 
Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be. 
And Freedom find no champion and no child 
Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled ? 
Or must such minds be nourished in the wild. 
Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roar 
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled 
On infant Washington? Has Earth no more 
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ? 

XCVII. 

But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been 
To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime ; 
Because the deadly days which we have seen. 
And vile Ambition, that built up between 
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, 
And the base pageant last upon the scene. 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his second fall. 

XCYIII. 
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying. 
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying. 



202 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

The loudest still the tempest leaves behind; 
Thy tree hatli lost its blossoms, and the rind, 
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth, 
But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; 
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 

XCIX. 

There is a stern round tower of other days. 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 
Sucli as an army's battled strength delays. 
Standing with half its battlements alone, 
And with two thousand years of ivy grown. 
The garland of eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all by time o'erthrown ; — 
Wliat was this tower of strength ? within its cave 
What treasure lay so locked, so hid? — A woman's grave. 

C. 

But who was she, the lady of the dead. 
Tombed in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? 
Worthy a king's, or more — a Roman's bed? 
What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ? 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 
How lived — how loved — how died she ? Was she not 
So honored — and conspicuously there. 
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot. 
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 

CI. 

Was she as those who love their lords, or they 
Who love the lords of others ? such have been. 
Even in the olden time Rome's annals say. 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



203 







Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien, - 
Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, 
Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she war, 
Inveterate in virtue ? Did she lean 
To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar 
Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the affections are. 



CII. 

Perchance she died in youth ; it may be, bowed 
With woes far heavier than tlie ponderous tomb 
That weighed upon her gentle dust, a cloud 
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 
Heaven gives its favorites — early death ; yet shed 



204 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

A sunset charm around her, and illume 
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead, 
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaflike red. 

cm. 

Perchance she died in age — surviving all, 
Charms, kindred, children — with the silver gray 
On her long tresses, "which might yet recall, 
It may be, still a something of the day 
When they were braided, and her proud array 
And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
By Rome. — But whither would Conjecture stray ? 
Thus much alone we know — Mctella died, 
Tlie wealthiest Roman's wife ; behold his love or pride I 

CIV. 

I know not why — -but standing thus by thee 
It seems as if I had thine inmate known, 
Thou tomb ! and other days come back on me 
With recollected music, though the tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; 
Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone 
Till I had bodied forth the heated mind 
Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves behind ; 

CV. 

And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks, 

Built me a little bark of hope, once more 

To battle with tlie ocean and the shocks 

Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar 

Which rushes on the solitary shore 

Where all lies foundered that was ever dear : 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 205 

But could I gather from the wave-worn store 
Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer ? 
There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. 

CVL 

Then let the winds howl on ! their harmony 
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 
The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry 
As I now hear them, in the fading light 
Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, 
Answering each other on the Palatine, 
With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright, 
And sailing pinions. — Upon such a shrine 
What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number mine. 

CVII. 
Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 
Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped 
On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown 
In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescos steeped 
In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped. 
Deeming it midnight : — temples, baths, or halls ? 
Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reaped 
From her research hath been, that these are walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. 

CVIII. 
There is the moral of all human tales ; 
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past. 
First Freedom, and then Glory — when that fails, 
Wealth, vice, corruption — barbarism at last. 
And History, with all her volumes vast. 
Hath but one page, — 't is better written here, 



206 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

Where gorgeous Tyranny had thus amassed 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, 
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask — Away with words ! draw near, 

CIX. 

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, Aveep, — for here 
There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! 
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear. 
Ages and realms are crowded in this span, 
This mountain, whose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of empires pinnacled. 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 
Till the sun's rays with added flame were filled ! 
"VVliere are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to build ? 

ex. 

Tully was not so eloquent as thou, 
Thou nameless column with the buried base ! 
What arc the laurels of the Ctesar's brow ? 
Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. 
Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, 
Titus', or Trajan's? Xo — 'tis that of Time: 
Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace 
Scoffing : and apostolic statues climb 
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime, 

CXI. 

Buried in air, the deep-blue sky of Rome, 

And looking to the stars: they had contained 

A spirit which with these would find a home, 

The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned, 

The Roman globe, for after none sustained. 

But yielded back his conquests : — he was more 



CANTO IV 



PILGBIMAGE. 



Than a mere Alexander, and, unstained 
With household blood and wine, serenely wore 
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. 



207 










CXII. 

Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place 
Where Rome embraced her heroes ? where the steep 
Tarpeian — fittest goal of Treason's race. 
The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap 
Cured all ambition ? Did the conquerors heap 
Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, 
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — 
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, 
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero ! 



208 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

CXIII. 
The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: 
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, 
From the first hour of empire in the bud 
To that when further worlds to conquer failed ; 
But long before had Freedom's face been veiled, 
And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; 
Till every lawless soldier who assailed 
Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, 
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. 

CXIV. 

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name. 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 
Eedeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 
Eienzi ! last of Romans ! While the tree 
Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf, 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 
The forum's champion, and the people's chief — 
Her new-born Numa thou — with reign, alas ! too brief. 

cxv. 

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art 
Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air. 
The nympholepsy of some fond despair; 
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth. 
Who found a more than common votary there 
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth. 
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. 



.CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 209 



CXVI. 

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops ; the face 
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years un wrinkled, 
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, 
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep, 
Prisoned in marble ; bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep, 

CXVII. 

Fantastically tangled ; the green hills 
Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass 
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass ; 
Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, 
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ; 
The sweetness of the violet's deep-blue eyes, 
Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems colored by its skies. 

cxvrii. 

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, 
Egeria ! thy all-heavenly bosom beating 
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover ; 
The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting 
With her most starry canopy, and seating 
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ? 
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting 
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell 
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle ! 

14 



210 CHILBE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

CXIX. 

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, 
Blend a celestial with a human heart; 
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sisrhinff. 
Share with immortal transports ? could thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and impart 
The purity of heaven to earthly joys, 
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — 
The dull satiety which all destroys — 
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys? 

cxx. 

Alas ! our young affections run to waste, 
Or water but the desert ; whence arise 
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste. 
Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes. 
Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies, 
And trees whose gums are poison ; such the plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies 
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. 

CXXI. 

Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art — 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, 
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, 
But never yet hath, seen, nor e'er shall see 
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; 
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, 
Even with its own desiring phantasy. 
And to a thought such shape and image given, 
As haunts the unquenched soul — parched, wearied, wrung, and riven. 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 211 

CXXII. 

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, 
And fevers into false creation : — where, 
Wlicre are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? 
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair ? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreached Paradise of our despair. 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again? 

CXXIII. 

Who loves, raves — 't is youth's phrensy — but the cure 
Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds 
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure 
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's 
Ideal V shape of such; yet still it binds 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on. 
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds ; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun. 
Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most undone. 

CXXTV. 

We wither from our youth, we gasp away — 
Sick — sick ; unfound the boon — unslaked the thirst, 
Though to the last, in verge of our decay. 
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
But all too late, — so are we doubly cursed. 
Love, fame, ambition, avarice — 't is the same, 
Each idle — and all ill — and none the worst — 
For all are meteors with a different name. 
And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. 



212 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv, 

cxxv. 

Few — none — find what they love or could have loved, 
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong 
Necessity of loving, have removed 
Antipathies — but to recur, ere long. 
Envenomed with irrevocable wrong; 
And Circumstance, that unspiritual god 
And miscreator, makes and helps along 
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod. 
Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all have trod, 

CXXVI. 

Our life is a false nature — 't is not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard decree, 
This uneradicable taint of sin. 
This boundless upas, this all-blasting iTQQ, 
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be 
The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — 
And worse, the woes we see not — which throb through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. 

CXXVII. 

Yet let us ponder boldly — 't is a base 
Abandonment of reason to resign 
Our right of thought — our last and only place 
Of refuge ; this, at least, shall still be mine : 
Though from our birth the faculty divine 
Is chained and tortured — cabined, cribbed, confined, 
And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 
Too brightly on the unprepared mind, 
The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. 



CANTO IV. 



riLGBIMAGE. 



213 



CXXVIII. 
Arches on arches ! as it were that Rome, 
Collecting- the chief trophies of her lino, 
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, 
Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine 
As 'twere its natural torches, for divine 
Should be the lio-ht which streams here, to illume 




Tliis long-explored but still exhaustless mine 
Of contemplation; and the azure gloom 
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 



CXXIX. 

Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven. 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument. 
And shadows forth its glory. There is given 



214 CRUDE HAROLD'S canto ly. 

Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, 
A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power 
And magic in the ruined battlement. 
For which the palace of the present hour 
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. 

cxxx. 

Oh Time ! the beautifier of the dead, 
Adorner of the ruin, comforter 
And only healer when the heart hath bled — 
Time ! the corrector where our judgments err. 
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher, 
For all beside are sophists, — from thy thrift, 
"Which never loses though it doth defer — 
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift 
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift : 

CXXXl. 

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine 
And temple more divinely desolate. 
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine. 
Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate: 
If thou hast ever seen me too elate, 
Hear me not ; but if calmly I have borne 
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate 
"Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn 
This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn ? 

CXXXII. 

And thou, who never yet of human wrong 
Lost the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis ! 
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long — 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 215 

Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss, 
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss 
For that unnatural retribution — just, 
Had it but been from hands less near — in this 
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust ! 
Dost thou not hear my heart ? — Awake ! thou shalt, and must. 

CXXXIII. 

It is not that I may not have incurred 
For my ancestral faults or mine the wound 
I bleed withal, and, had it been conferred 
With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound; 
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground; 
To thee I do devote it — tJiou shalt take 
The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found. 
Which if I have not taken for the sake — 
But let that pass — I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. 

CXXXIV. 

And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now 
I shrink from what is suffered : let him speak 
Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, 
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak ; 
But in this page a record will I seek. 
Not in the air shall these my words disperse. 
Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak 
The deep prophetic fulness of this verse. 
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse ! 

cxxxv. 

That curse shall be Forgiveness. — Have I not — 
Hear me, my mother Earth ! behold it. Heaven ! — 
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? 



216 CHILBE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

Have I not suffered things to be forgiven ? 
Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, 
Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away ? 
And only not to desperation driven. 
Because not altogether of such clay 
As rots into the souls of tliose wliom I survey. 

CXXXVI. 

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
Have I not seen what human things could do? 
From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry few. 
And subtler venom of the reptile crew. 
The Janus glance of whose significant eye. 
Learning to lie with silence, would seem true. 
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, 
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy. 

CXXXVII. 

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: 
My mind may lose its force, m\^ blood its fire. 
And my frame perish even in conquering pain. 
But there is that within me which shall tire 
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire ; 
Something unearthly, which they deem not of. 
Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre, 
Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move 
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. 

CXXXVIII. 

The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power ! 
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 
Walk'st in the shadow of the midniaht hour 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 217 

With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear ; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 
That we become a part of wdiat has been, 
And grow mito the spot, all-seeing but unseen, 

CXXXIX. 

And here the buzz of eager nations ran, 
In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, 
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. 
And wherefore slaughtered ? wherefore, but because 
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws. 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not ? 
What matters where we fall to fill the maws 
Of worms — on battle-plains or listed s^Dot? 
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. 

CXL. 
I see before me the Gladiator lie : 
He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
And his drooped head sinks gradually Ioav — 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one. 
Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him — ho is gone, 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. 

CXLL 
He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes 
Were with his heart, and that was far away ; 
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, 



218 CHILD E HAROLD'S canto iv, 

But where his rude hut by the Danube lay 
There "were his young barbarians all at play, 
There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, 
Butchered to make a Roman holiday — 
All this rushed with his blood — Shall he expire 
And unavenged? — Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! 

CXLII. 

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; 
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways. 
And roared or murmured like a mountain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; 
Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise 
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd. 
My voice sounds much — and fall the stars' faint rays 
On the arena void — seats crushed — walls bowed — 
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. 

CXLIII. 
A ruin — yet what ruin ! from its mass 
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared ; 
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass 
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. 
Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ? 
Alas ! developed, opens the decay. 
When the colossal fabric's form is neared : 
It will not bear the brightness of the day, 
Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. 

CXLIV. 
But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there ; 
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



219 




And the low niglit-breeze waves along the air 
The garland-forest which the gray walls wear, 
Like laurels on the liald first Ceesar's head; 
When the light shines serene but doth not glare, 
Then in this magic circle raise the dead : 
Heroes have trod this spot — 't is on their dust ye tread. 



CXLV. 

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; 
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; 
And when Rome falls — the World." From our own land 
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall 
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call 
Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still 
On their foundations, and unaltered all ; 
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, 
The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will. 



220 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

CXLVI. 

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods. 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time ; 
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods 
Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! 
Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods 
Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home 
Of art and piety — Pantheon ! — pride of Rome ! 

CXLVII. 

Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts ! 
Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreads 
A holiness appealing to all hearts — 
To art a model ; and to him who treacts 
Rome for the sake of ages. Glory sheds 
Her light through thy sole aperture ; to those 
Who worship, here" are altars for their beads ; 
And they who feel for genius may repose 
Their eyes on honored forms, whose busts around them close. 

CXLVIII. 

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light 
What do I gaze on ? Nothing : Look again ! 
Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight — 
Two insulated phantoms of the brain : 
It is not so; I see them full aud plain — 
An old man, and a female young and fair. 
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein 
The blood is nectar: — but what doth she there, 
With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare ? 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 221 

CXLIX. 

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, 
Where on the heart and from the heart we took 
Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife. 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look, 
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook 
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives 
Man knows not, wlien from out its cradled nook 
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — 
What may the fruit be yet ? — I know not — Cain was Eve's. 

CL. 

But here youth offers to old age the food. 
The milk of his own gift : it is her sire 
To whom she renders back the debt of blood 
Born with her birth. No ; he shall not expire 
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire 
Of health and holy feeling can provide 
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher 
Than Egypt's river : — from that gentle side 
Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide. 

CLI. 

The starry fable of the milky way 
Has not thy story's purity ; it is 
A constellation of a sweeter ray. 
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this 
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss 
Where sparkle distant worlds : — holiest nurse ! 
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss 
To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source 
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. 



222 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO IV. 




CLII. 

Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high, 
Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, 
Colossal copyist of deformity. 
Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's 
Enormous model, doomed the artist's toils 
To build for giants, and for his vain earth. 
His shrunken ashes, raise this dome : How smiles 
The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, 
To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth ! 



CLIIl. 
But lo ! the dome — the vast and wondrous dome. 
To which Diana's marvel was a cell — 
Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb ! 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 223 

I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyasna and the jackal in their shade ; 
I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell 
Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have surveyed 
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed; 

CLIV. 

But thou, of temples old, or altars new, 
Standest alone — with nothing like to thee — 
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 
Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
Forsook his former city, what could be. 
Of earthly structures, in his honor piled, 
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, 
Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 

CLV. 

Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; 
And why ? it is not lessened ; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 
Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 
Thy hopes of immortality ; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, 
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now 
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. 

CLVI. 

Thou movest — but increasing with the advance. 
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, 
Deceived by its gigantic elegance ; 



224 CHILDE HABOLD'S canto iv. 

Vastiiess which grows — but grows to harmonize — 
All musical in its immensities ; 

E.ich marbles — richer painting — shrines where flame 
The lamps of gold — and haughty dome which vies 
In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame 
Sits on the firm-set ground — and this the clouds must claim. 

CLVII. 

Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break, 
• To separate contemplation, the great whole ; 

And as the ocean many bays will make. 

That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul 

To more immediate objects, and control 

Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart 

Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 

In mighty graduations, part by part, 
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, 

CLVIII. 

Not by its fault — but thine: our outward sense 
Is but of gradual grasp — and as it is 
That what we have of feeling most intense 
Outstrips our faint expression, even so this 
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great 
Defies at first our nature's littleness, 
Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate 
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate. 

CLIX. 
Then pause, and be enlightened ; there is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 
Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



225 




The worship of the phxce, or the mere praise 
Of art and its great masters, who could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan; 
The fountain of sublimity displays 
Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. 



CLX. 

Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 

Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — 

A father's love and mortal's agony 

With an immortal's patience blending. — Vain 



The struggle 



vain, against the coiling strain 
15 



226 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain 
Rivets the living links, — the enormous asp 
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. 

CLXI. 
Or view the Lord of the unerring bow. 
The God of life, and poesy, and light — 
The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 
Tlie shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might. 
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, 
Developing in that one glance the Deity. 

CLXII. 

But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, 
Shaped by some solitary nymph,' whose breast 
Longed for a deathless lover from above, 
And maddened in that vision — are expressed 
All that ideal beauty ever blessed 
The mind with in its most unearthly mood, 
When each conception was a heavenly guest — 
A ray of immortality — and stood, 
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god ! 

CLXIII. 
And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven 
The fire which we endure, it was repaid 
By him to whom the energy was given 
Which this poetic marble hath arrayed 
With an eternal glory — which, if made 



CANTO lY. PILGRIMAGE. 227 

By human hands, is not of human thought ; 
And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid 
One ringlet in the dust — nor hath it caught 
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 't was wrought. 

CLXIV. 
But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song, 
The being who upheld it through the past ? 
Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. 
He is no more — these breathings are his last; 
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast. 
And he himself as nothing: — if he was 
Aught but a phantasy, and could be classed 
With forms which live and suffer — let that pass — 
His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, 

CLXV. 

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all 
That we inherit in its mortal shroud. 
And spreads the dim and universal pall 
Through which all things grow phantoms ; and the cloud 
Between us sinks and all which ever glowed, 
Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays 
A melancholy halo scarce allowed 
To hover on the verge of darkness; rays 
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, 

CLXVI. 

And send us prying into tlie abyss. 
To gather what we shall be when the frame 
Shall be resolved to something less than this 
Its wretched essence ; and to dream of fame, 
And wipe the dust from off the idle name 



228 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

We never more shall hear, — but never more, 
Oh, happier thought ! can we be made the same : 
It is enough in sooth that once we bore 
These fardels of the heart — the heart whose sweat was gore. 

CLXVII. 

Hark ! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 
A long low distant murmur of dread sound. 
Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
With some deep and immedicable wound ; 
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, 
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief 
Seems royal still, though with her head discrowned, 
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief 
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. 

CLXVIII. 
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou ? 
Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead ? 
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low 
Some less majestic, less beloved head ? 
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, 
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, 
Death hushed that pang for ever: with thee fled 
The present happiness and promised joy 
Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy. 

CLXIX. 

Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, 

thou that wert so happy, so adored ! 

Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, 

And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard 

Her many griefs for One; for she had poured 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 229 

Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head 
Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely lord. 
And desolate consort — vainly wert thou wed ! 
The husband of a year ! the father of the dead ! 

CLXX. 

Of sackcloth was thy wedding-garment made ; 
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes : in the dust 
The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid. 
The love of millions ! How we did entrust 
Futurity to her! and, though it must 
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed 
Our children should obey her child, and blessed 
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed 
Like stars to shepherds' eyes: — 'twas but a meteor beamed. 

CLXXI. 

Woe unto us, not her ; for she sleeps well : 
The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue 
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle. 
Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung 
Its knell in princely ears, till the o'er stung 
Nations have armed in madness, the strange fate 
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung 
Against their blind omnipotence a weight 
Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, — 

CLXXII. 

These might have been her destiny ; but no, 
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, 
Good without effort, great without a foe; 
But now a bride and mother — and now there! 
How many ties did that stern moment tear ! 



230 CHILDE HAROLD'S canto iv. 

From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast 
Is linked the electric chain of that despair, 
Whose shock was as an earthquake's and oppressed 
The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. 

CLXXIII. 

Lo, Nemi ! navelled in the woody hills 
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears 
The oak from his foundation, and which spills 
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; 
And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wears 
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, 
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 

CLXXIV. 

And near Albano's scarce-divided waves 
Shine from a sister valley ; — and afar 
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, 
"Arms and the Man," whose reascending star 
Rose o'er an empire ; — but beneath thy right 
Tully reposed from Rome ; — and where yon bar 
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight 
The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary bard's delight. 

CLXXV. 

But I forget. — My pilgrim's shrine is won. 
And he and I must part, — so let it be, — 
His task and mine alike are nearly done ; 
Yet once more let us look upon the sea ; 
The Midland Ocean breaks on him and me. 



CANTO IV. 



PILGRIMAGE. 



231 



And from the Albaii Mount we now behold 
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold 
Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled 




CLXXVL 

Upon the blue Symplegades : long years — 
Long, though not very many, since have done 
Their work on both ; some suffering and some tears 
Have left us nearly where we had begun: 
Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run. 
We have had our reward — and it is here; 
That we can yet feel gladdened by the sun. 
And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear 
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. 



232 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO IV. 



CLXXVII. 

Oh ! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, 
With one fair Spirit for my minister, 
That I might all forget the human race. 
And, hating no one, love but only her ! 
Ye Elements ! — in whose ennobling stir 
I feel myself exalted — can ye not 
Accord me such a being ? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot. 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot ? 




CLXXVIII. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods. 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes. 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar : 
I love not Man the less, but Nature more. 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before. 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 233 

CLXxrx. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain. 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
"Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

CLXXX. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay, 
And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. 

CLXXXI. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake. 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war, — 
Tliese are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake. 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 



234 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 



CANTO IV. 



CLXXXII. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
Thy waters washed them power while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 




CLXXXIII. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time. 
Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm. 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 



CANTO IV. PILGRIMAGE. 235 

Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
■The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

CLXXXIV. 

And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight : and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror, 't was a pleasing fear. 
For I was as it were a child of thee. 
And trusted to thy billows far and near. 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 

CLXXXV. 

My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme 
Has died into an echo ; it is fit 
The spell should break of this protracted dream. 
The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit 
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ ; — 
Would it were worthier ! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow 
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. 

CLXXXVI. 

Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger; — yet — farewell! 
Ye who have traced the Pil":rim to the scene 



23G 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. canto iv. 



Which is his last, if in your memories dwell 
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 
A single recollection, not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell ; 
Farewell ! with liim alone may rest the pain, 
If such there were — with you, the moral of his strain! 




